The explosion of a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. Explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

It is strange that questions that arose during the time of the Chernobyl disaster still remain unanswered. We offer you some interesting facts about the Chernobyl disaster and about nuclear energy in the world.

It was on this day that the biggest tragedy occurred not only in Ukraine, but also in all mankind - the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The cause of the disaster is considered to be a power surge in the network, which caused two explosions. Fortunately (if I may say so), the explosions were not atomic, but chemical - a consequence of overheating of the reactor and the accumulation of a significant amount of steam. At the time of the explosion, there were about 200 tons of uranium in the reactor. The skin was destroyed, and due to the lack of a protective shell, more than 60 tons of radioactive particles rose into the air.

The total radiation of isotopes released into the air after the Chernobyl accident was 30-40 times greater than during the explosion of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

Since the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a graphite-water reactor, it was graphite that provided for the easy flammability of the entire system. After the explosion, about 800 tons of graphite remained in it, which began to burn. The fire lasted 10 days and claimed the lives of 31 people. Graphite finally stopped burning only on May 10.

The firefighters who first arrived at the scene of the disaster did not have insulating gas masks. They were simply not warned about the specifics of the situation. As a result, radioactive substances entered the respiratory tract of the liquidators.

The number of people who took part in extinguishing the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was 240 thousand. All of them received high doses of radiation. However, it was the firefighters who managed to save us from a really serious catastrophe - a strong hydrogen explosion, which could become the next stage of the tragedy.

Immediately after the accident, almost 8.5 million people were irradiated, about 155 thousand square meters. km of territories were contaminated, of which 52 thousand square meters. km - agricultural land. The reactor continued to emit radiation for another 3 weeks until it was bombarded with a mixture of sand, lead, clay and boron.

The government of the USSR apparently tried to hide this tragedy from the world because of its obsession with secrecy. But failed. The next day, an abnormal increase in radiation levels was noted in Sweden. So it was determined that something terrible had happened in Ukraine.

The first official announcement in the USSR was made on April 28 under pressure from the international community, but even it almost did not report on the extent of the problem. There was an impression that there is no threat, but the problem is local. All foreign media talked about the danger caused by the Chernobyl accident, while the Soviet media said almost nothing about it. Although it was at this time that parades and demonstrations in honor of May 1 were being prepared in all cities of the USSR.

As the officials explained later, they did not want to cause panic among the population. Although in Kyiv, for example, on the day when thousands of people took to the streets of the city, the radiation level exceeded the background level by several tens of times.

The government of the USSR proudly refused international assistance, but already in 1987 it turned to the IAEA to give an expert assessment of the actions to eliminate the consequences of the accident.

After the disaster, the station did not work for about 6 months. During this time, the territory was deactivated, a sarcophagus was built, which covered the 4th power unit. And then the 3 power units that still remained were put into operation again.

Causes of the accident.

In general, there are several versions about the causes of the accident, but they all boil down to one thing - the negligence of workers.

Officially, the reason is considered to be the incompetence of the personnel who were assigned to conduct a technical experiment that day. The control devices were turned off, and the reactor power was reduced to an unacceptable level. The situation became uncontrollable, and any attempts to normalize it were made out of time. As it turned out later, this experiment was not coordinated in the prescribed manner and prepared inappropriately.

On April 25, 1986, the planned shutdown of the 4th power unit for maintenance was to take place. They decided to use this opportunity for research, in particular, to check the operation of the reactor in the event of a loss of external power supply. At the same time, the power was supposed to be at least 700 MW, and due to operator error, it dropped to 30 MW - do you feel the difference? However, the experiment was continued with the protection systems turned off.

After the accident, a lawsuit began, in which the director of the station, Bryukhanov, was accused of lack of discipline among the workers. He was also accused of not taking appropriate measures to protect the population and station workers after the emergency, and also providing false data on the scale of the disaster, which prevented timely evacuation.

Charges were also brought against the chief engineer Fomin and his deputy Dyatlov for not properly training NPP personnel and ignoring the instructions of the supervisory authorities.

As it turned out, the mistakes of the NPP personnel repeatedly led to dangerous situations, but these cases were carefully hidden. By 1980, there were already 8 shutdowns of power units: twice - due to errors of design organizations, three times - due to suppliers and three times - due to the fault of personnel.

At first, the government of the USSR and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) were blamed for what happened, exclusively by the personnel of the nuclear power plant. However, a few years later, the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee published a new report that uncovered several serious problems in the design of the reactor itself. Among the reasons given in this report were:
- incorrect design of the reactor;
- insufficient informing of personnel about the dangers associated with the design features;
- despite the fact that the staff did make a number of mistakes, it was done unintentionally and mainly due to insufficient information.
Structural defects were the result of accelerated construction, which was proclaimed a shock Komsomol construction site. Attempts to please the Soviet elite led to a decrease in the quality of work. In addition, the reactor did not pass all the necessary tests. In 1983, certain malfunctions were already discovered, but they decided to ignore them.

There are alternative versions about the disruption of the circulation pumps and the rupture of pipelines, which led to a power surge. Hypotheses are put forward about sabotage or an earthquake.

Russian geophysicist E.V. Barkovsky spoke about a break in the earth's crust in the valley of the Pripyat River and about earthquakes that have repeatedly occurred here throughout history. They say that shortly before the catastrophe, the slabs of the 4th reactor began to deform quite strongly due to the movement of the fault boundaries.

Some believe that the main problem was precisely the government of the USSR, which favored communists over specialists.

And although many studies and investigations have been carried out over the years, there is still no experimentally confirmed version of the accident.

Evacuation.

At first, the evacuation was planned to take place on April 26, but the government of the USSR delayed it (perhaps they hoped that it would cost). But that was a mistake. On this day, the wind was blowing in the direction of Pripyat, which was only 4 km from the station. The pine forest, which was located between the two points, turned into the "Red Forest" due to the influence of radiation. Moreover, the pine begins to die at a dose of 10 Gy, and only 4 Gy is enough for a person.


In order to expedite the evacuation, residents were told that this was a temporary measure, so almost all of their personal belongings remained in the zone. At the same time, there was not a word about recommendations that would help reduce the impact of radioactive radiation on health.

Mistakes were made during transportation. Was chosen is not quite the right way to advance the columns. Almost 50% of the exposure people received was on the road. Some were allowed to leave the city in their own car, despite the fact that the vehicles were also contaminated, and there were no dosimetric posts yet.

Lyudmila Kharitonova, a Chernobyl worker, recalled that the hardest thing was to say goodbye to pets who did not understand that they were being left forever. They were not allowed to be taken out because of the radioactive wool.

After the accident, 115 thousand people were taken out of the 30-kilometer exclusion zone. However, since the defeat also covered the lands of Russia and Belarus, the total number of people who lost their homes reached 220 thousand people.

Consequences.

Although the Chernobyl disaster is considered a Ukrainian tragedy (12 regions of Ukraine were affected as a result of the accident), official data show that Belarus received 70% of the radiation: a fifth of the agricultural territories were affected, and hundreds of thousands of people began to suffer from leukemia and thyroid cancer. Belarusians also have an exclusion zone, which today is more than 4,000 km.

However, the radioactive cloud went even further and touched even the eastern United States. Radioactive rain has been recorded in Ireland. The British Ministry of Health reports that today more than 300 farms and 200 sheep have traces of radiation contamination. In 1986, there were about 4 million such sheep.

A fairly important issue is the pollution of water sources, especially the Dnieper and Pripyat rivers. Danger also threatens the Kyiv reservoir. There is a danger of radionuclides penetrating into groundwater, which can lead to the ingress of radioactive substances into the water supply systems of settlements and into drinking water. The reason for this may be the so-called "funnel" that formed in the relief. Radioactive substances in them can penetrate hundreds of meters deep into the soil.

To this day, experts argue about the number of victims of the accident. At the moment, 64 confirmed deaths due to radiation damage have been officially recognized. Unofficial statistics report more than 15 thousand people injured in the accident.

And doctors generally talk about an "avalanche" increase in mortality rates among the population that fell under the influence of radiation: in 1987 the number of victims reached 2 thousand, and in 1995 there were already about 37.5 thousand. about which at that time Soviet doctors did not know: thyroiditis, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism.

Residents of contaminated areas, as well as everyone who took part in the aftermath of the accident, were found to be prone to cataracts, cardiovascular diseases, and reduced immunity. In addition, it has been proven that exposure to low doses of radiation can cause anxiety and aggressiveness and affects the psyche of people and especially children.

Thyroid cancer and leukemia are now believed to be the most common diseases caused by the release of radioactive substances from Chernobyl. In addition, there is talk of an increase in the number of cases of congenital pathologies in children, as well as an increase in the level of infant mortality in the contaminated territories, although there is no specific statistical evidence for this. It was also about the increase in cases of the birth of children with Down syndrome. In Belarus, the peak of the disease occurred in 1987, but this does not yet prove a specific connection between the "epidemic" and the accident.

This catastrophe also has pluses, if I may say so: the level of safety at such facilities began to be monitored better, most of the malfunctions were eliminated in similar reactors; on the territory of the Chernobyl zone, a natural reserve was formed, to which people have almost no access.

In 1995, Ukraine promised the European Union and the G7 to close the station by 2000. Two major fires in 1991 and 1996 were cause for concern.

"Sarcophagus"

At the end of 1986, the reactor was covered with a special "sarcophagus" to prevent the spread of radioactive particles. The shelter was built by volunteers and mobilized soldiers, who would later be called liquidators. For the entire time of the construction of the "sarcophagus" there were about 600 thousand people from all over the then USSR.

The old "sarcophagus" was made of concrete, but without reinforcement, which raises doubts about the safety given the seismic activity seen in the area. Residents who live in the city of Slavutych (built mainly for migrants from the exclusion zone) say that the cracks in the building were actually from the beginning. There are some that people can crawl through. The builders did not set a goal to make everything airtight. But this is understandable, because of the significant level of radiation, people could not stay there for a long time. The construction was carried out with the help of cranes with radio control. Reconnaissance was carried out with the help of a person in a lead chamber, which was carried at high speed over the reactor (not a single intelligence officer has survived to this day).

It is believed that about 95-97% of the radioactive material that remained after the accident is still under cover and still is. The danger lies in the fact that radioactive substances, in the event of a collapse, can cause significant harm to both the environment and humanity.

In 2000, the EBRD announced a tender for the construction of a new "sarcophagus" for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was won by two French enterprises. Work began in 2012. The shelter was supposed to appear as early as 2014, but construction was delayed. So far, the year 2015 sounds in promises.

For the construction of the second "sarcophagus" donor countries collected 750 million euros (980 million according to other sources), and all costs are under the control of the EBRD. It is planned that the new facility will be able to solve the problem for at least a hundred years, although they plan to eliminate the station as early as 2065.

"Sarcophagus" is being built 180 meters from the 4th power unit, which will save personnel (3 thousand people) from exposure. When the arch is ready, it will be pushed onto the object using special mechanisms.

Exclusion zone today.

Recently, there have been more and more proposals regarding the rational use of more or less safe territories, for example, the creation of the Polessky Biosphere Reserve.

At the moment, about 400 species of animals, birds and fish live in the exclusion zone. 60 of them are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine. The same with the flora: out of 1,200 species found on the territory of the zone, 20 are rare. Scientists rejoice at the restoration of the population of brown bears, unique for these territories, as well as elks, wolves, lynxes, deer and, oddly enough, Przewalski's horses, brought here back in the 90s. Rare black storks and raccoon dogs, atypical for these parts, began to appear here.

Chernobyl animals are no different from ordinary ones, except that they are less shy, because they have not had to meet a person. Tales of anomalies and mutants are an exaggeration, locals say. The only thing that can be called true is creatures whose size exceeds the usual. Here you can meet two-meter pikes and 1.5-meter catfish. There have been several cases of birth defects in pets. Although the genetic consequences of the disaster require further study.

In addition, the issue of the possibility of reducing the exclusion zone is periodically considered. In accordance with the approved state program, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant should be completely eliminated by 2065: the fuel will be removed and transferred to long-term storage facilities, the reactors will be mothballed, and when the level of radioactivity decreases, they will be dismantled and the territory will be cleaned.

Tourism.

Recently, Chernobyl opened its doors to tourists. Forbes magazine included the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the list of the most extravagant tourist places. Although they say that it is prohibited by law. However, it is better than the unauthorized visits of stalkers.

Public interest in the exclusion zone was awakened by the cultural heritage of society: literature, films and, especially, computer games, which created a kind of myth around Chernobyl. That is why stalkers visit here so often. Those who have dealt with them divide them into two groups: the first are gamers, children who want to see everything shown in the game with their own eyes. They do not go far, and the main goal is a few photos or videos taken far from the 10-kilometer zone, which, however, look no less creepy. The second ones enter the ten-kilometer zone. Their trip usually lasts several days. But it should be noted that these are quite prepared people: with the necessary equipment, physical and psychological preparation and essentials. They have a clear route and knowledge of radiation safety. There are also those who roam the zone in the hope of finding any things that can be used or sold.

Returnees.

In addition to tourists who come here for a few hours, there are people who could not leave their homes. They returned here in 1986 and settled in 11 settlements. Among them, the most "crowded" is Chernobyl with its shop, post office, fire department and other necessary communications.

These people are often referred to as self-settlers. The term appeared in the 80s thanks to journalists. However, Lina Kostenko, one of the participants in historical and ethnographic expeditions to the zone, believes that this is an offensive name. "Their homeland is there. They grew up there and continue to live after the accident in their native homes - even if they are forgotten by God and the state." She leans towards the name "returnees".

Some sources indicate that at the time of their return to the zone there were about 1,200 of them. Now their number is sharply decreasing, mainly because they are elderly people. The average age of a resident of the exclusion zone is 63 years. However, in spite of everything, they continue to live their usual lives: they do housework, pick mushrooms and berries, and fish. Sometimes they go hunting.

One of the reasons for returning to the zone was that the housing provided to the evacuees was of poor quality, built in haste. Several families lived in the houses. The indigenous population was hostile to the settlers.

They tried to forcibly evict the returnees from the zone. At first they hid as best they could, they even lit the stoves at night. And then they began to defend their right to live in their native land. The power has given way. These people are still not left. Enterprises that work in the exclusion zone help the locals: they repair buildings, help with transport, medical examination and treatment, control food, bring food, clothing, and perform funeral services.

The question arises, how safe is living in a zone of radioactive contamination? Studies have been carried out that have shown that the radiation doses of the inhabitants of the zone depend on the diet and behavior. It was found that the content of radionuclides in some products used by the returnees exceeded the permissible limit. In addition, the Administration of the zone says that the level of radiation in the settlements is above the permissible level. And residents of the 10-kilometer zone say that they were allowed not to leave their homes, because their bodies are already accustomed to radiation, and in a clean environment, health may deteriorate.

A bit of history.

Before the whole world learned about the existence of Chernobyl, the largest disaster of this nature was the accident at the American nuclear power plant Three Mile Island. It remains the largest in American history to this day. The liquidation of the consequences lasted about ten years and cost $1 billion.

The reason is considered technical malfunctions and incompetence of the staff. In the reactor cooling system, the feed pump failed, and the emergency cooling system turned off. Water did not flow due to closed water supply after the repair of the main. By the end of the day, the cooling of the reactor was resumed, but during all this time part of the nuclear fuel was melted. The hull remained intact, but a small amount of radioactive gases entered the atmosphere, and the station was contaminated with radioactive water. There was no need to evacuate the population, however, pregnant women and children were asked to leave the 8 km zone.

Chernobyl and Fukushima.

20 years after the tragedy, Chernobyl began to be forgotten. Nuclear projects were reactivated, which included the construction of new nuclear power plants. Among the countries that planned the development of nuclear energy, was Ukraine. And here again - we received another warning.

Before the accident in Japan, Chernobyl was considered the only accident with 7 - the highest level of danger. Now there are two such disasters.

Ukraine, given its rollercoaster experience, was the first to offer Japan assistance, both at the official and interpersonal levels. At first, the Japanese did not react. However, parliamentarians from the affected region began to put pressure on Tokyo, which prompted Japanese representatives of various industries to increasingly come to Ukraine to get acquainted with our unique experience in dealing with the consequences of a nuclear tragedy. Meanwhile, Ukrainians also visited Japan, in particular Fukushima, to advise local workers.

The accident at Fukushima was caused by a magnitude 9 earthquake and the resulting tsunami. The element damaged the station's power supply and caused a cooling system failure, which caused several steam explosions.

A rather strong difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima was that the "Ukrainian radiation" was carried by the wind across Europe, and the Japanese - by the uninhabited regions of the Pacific Ocean (but this is not good either).

It is sad to realize that even after so many years in a developed country after the emergency period, it was very reminiscent of Chernobyl. As it turned out, this concerned not only the elimination of dangerous consequences, but also informing the population about pollution, its impact on health, preventive measures, etc. Although the Japanese themselves believe that they coped well with the accident: there were no victims, the release was ten times smaller than in Chernobyl.

All these events contributed to the development of Japanese-Ukrainian cooperation. In particular, in Japan there is the Chernobyl Children's Fund, which collects donations and organizes charity concerts with the participation of the Japanese bandura singer of Ukrainian origin Natalya Gudziy.

Although the consequences of Fokushima are not as severe as Chernobyl, its impact on society will be much stronger. After all, how can you compare a totalitarian state with outdated equipment and a modern country that is at the head of all advanced technologies. Even in this case, the results were disappointing, and what about the less developed states that claim to have active nuclear programs?

It was the explosion in Japan that gave a new impetus to the anti-nuclear movement, so all environmentalists immediately got down to business. The situation gave its results: projects for the construction of new nuclear power plants were frozen in several countries, and old reactors stopped working for a certain time.

Undoubtedly, energy issues in modern society are quite acute with all the deficits and pollution. But accidents at nuclear power plants mean the decline of agriculture due to the unsuitability of territories, the mutilated lives of many generations, millions of money for decontamination, "sarcophagi" and other necessary things.

In addition, it is strange that questions that arose during the time of the Chernobyl disaster still remain unanswered. If supporters of nuclear energy plan to continue building nuclear power plants around the world, it is worth thinking not about increasing capacities, but first of all about safety: how to make sure that accidents (and they will certainly continue) do not have such catastrophic consequences or how to prevent the spread of radiation to far distances.

In fact, using nuclear power is like walking on a knife edge. On the one hand, the prospects are quite tempting, on the other hand, one wrong step and the catastrophe will inevitably affect all of humanity. If you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burned.

Do not forget that a person is not a perfect being, and everything created by him can give an error.

On April 25, 1986, the shutdown of the fourth reactor was scheduled for the next scheduled preventive maintenance to test the so-called “turbine generator rotor run-down” mode. However, this mode has not yet been worked out at the plant and has not even been introduced in principle at nuclear power plants with RBMK-type reactors. However, tests on April 25, 1986 were already the fourth to be carried out at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The first attempt, back in 1982, showed that the coastdown voltage dropped faster than originally planned. Subsequent experiments carried out at the station after the refinement of the turbogenerator equipment in 1983, 1984 and 1985 also, for various reasons, ended unsuccessfully.

The Chernobyl accident. How it happened

On April 26, 1986, at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, during the operation of the RBMK-1000 reactor at a power of 200 MW, a powerful explosion occurred, which resulted in the complete destruction of the nuclear reactor of the station. Hot pieces of fuel assemblies and graphite were ejected from the reactor. Fragments of deadly irradiated fuel rods (fuel elements), graphite and even entire parts of metal structures were scattered over the roofs of the station's workshops and neighboring buildings located in the surrounding area. A fire broke out in various rooms of the station and on the roof. In addition to nuclear fuel, the reactor core at the time of the accident contained fission products and transuranium elements - various kinds of radioactive isotopes formed during the operation of the reactor. It was they who posed the greatest threat to the biosphere. In the environment, due to the maximum temperatures and the process of nuclear fuel melting, along with the heated air, a huge amount of radioactive substances was released, including isotopes of such chemical elements as uranium, plutonium (half-life - 8 days), cesium- 134 (half-life 2 years), (half-life 33 years), (half-life 28 years), and radioactive dust.

The data of isotopic analysis of the first samples of air, water and soil taken on the territory of the station in Chernobyl in the first days after the accident - from April 26 to May 1 - indicated that about a third of the total activity was accounted for by the iodine-131 isotope. In addition to it, isotopes of barium-140 and lanthanum-140, cesium-137 and cesium-134, ruthenium-103, zirconium-95, tellurium-132, cesium-141 and neptunium-239 were found in the collected samples, as well as in the nearest zone , the resettlement zone isotopes of strontium-90 and plutonium-239 and plutonium-240.

In urban areas, hazardous substances mainly settled on flat surfaces: on lawns, roads, roofs. And since the direction of the wind was not constant, the radioactivity dissipated, and, above all, in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In the area of ​​the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, radioactivity reached 15,000 roentgens per hour. In the near zone of the accident (10-30 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), the radionuclide composition of the fallout was close to its composition in the fuel, and outside this zone, the fractionation of radionuclides iodine-131 and cesium-137 was more significant. In the near zone, a large amount of "hot particles" was noted to fall out.

A significant part of the isotopes of strontium and plutonium was within a hundred kilometers from the station, as they were contained in heavy particles. Iodine and cesium spread over a wider area. Sufficiently intense fallout of strontium-90 (up to 100 kBq*m2) took place in the near zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, only a relatively small number of sites with a density of contamination of strontium-90 (37-100 kBq*m2) were located in the Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus and the Bryansk region of Russia . Areas with a high content of plutonium were within the near zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (30 km zone), where the density of plutonium contamination was noted to be more than 3700 Bq/m2. The excess of the global level for plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 in the upper soil layer (0-5 cm) averaged 175 times, and in more remote areas the content did not exceed 0.07-0.7 kBq*m2.

Part of the fuel, including deadly radioactive fission residues, including plutonium, in finely dispersed, droplet and gaseous form, together with superheated steam, rose to the clouds and moved with the wind mainly in a westerly direction, gradually settling and contaminating the entire surrounding area along the way. The radioactive plume stretched to the west - over the European part of the USSR, to the east - to the territory of Eastern Europe and to the north - to the countries of Scandinavia. At the same time, the bulk of the contaminated sediments settled on the territory of present-day Belarus - then the Byelorussian SSR. The radiation situation in the early period was determined by short-lived fission products and neutron activation, including iodine-131. In later periods, the determining radionuclides were cesium-134 and cesium-137, and in some local areas also strontium-90. The main dose-forming radionuclide in the long term was cesium-137, the content of which in the environment was used to assess the radiological situation. The total activity of cesium-137 deposited on the territory of the former USSR was 4*1016 Bq (including about 41% in Belarus, 35% in Russia, 24% in Ukraine, and less than 1% in other republics). The vast territory subjected to radioactive contamination has a complex configuration. The area with the level of cesium-137 contamination over 1 Ku*km2 (37 kBq*m2) occupied about 150 thousand km2. On the territory of Russia, the area with a density of caesium-137 contamination from 555-1480 kBq*m2 is 2100 km2, and over 1480 kBq*m2 is 310 km2. Many of the victims are still being treated in clinics Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Another part of the radioactive contents of the reactor melted, a mixture of molten metal, sand, concrete and fragments of fuel assemblies leaked through cracks in the lower part of the reactor vessel beyond its limits, including penetrating into the under-reactor rooms. The surviving part of the metal structures, fuel cells and graphite continued to melt for several days after the explosion and turned into a kind of mass that “burned through” the lower biological protection from steel sheets and (in the main part) concrete, mixed with the latter, and poured out of the power unit building avalanche-like mass to the lower marks, and frozen in the form of the famous "elephant's foot". dragged on for decades and is still unfinished.

April 25, 1986 At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the shutdown of the reactor is scheduled for scheduled preventive maintenance - this is a common practice for nuclear power plants. However, very often during such shutdowns, various experiments are carried out that cannot be carried out with the reactor running.

Just one of such experiments was scheduled for 1 am on April 26 - testing the "turbine generator rotor run-down" mode, which in principle could become one of the reactor protection systems during emergencies. Prepare for the experiment ahead of time. There were no surprises.

The city of power engineers Pripyat goes to bed. People discussed plans for the May holidays, talked about the upcoming Cup Winners' Cup final match between Dynamo (Kyiv) and Atlético (Madrid). The night shift was at the power plant.

“Strana” during April 26 will conduct online reporting of events from the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant thirty years ago, which led to the man-made and technological disaster of the millennium. Like it's going to happen tonight.

01:23 . An experiment begins at the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But everything immediately went wrong.

The turbine generator was shutting down faster than expected, pump speeds were dropping, water was moving more slowly through the reactor and boiling faster. The avalanche-like growth of steam increased the pressure inside the reactor by a factor of 70.

"Shut down the reactor!" Alexander Akimov, head of the block shift, sharply shouted to operator Leonid Toptunov.

“But it was beyond his power to do anything. All he could do was hold the emergency protection button. There were no other means at his disposal,” Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief engineer of the operating station, later wrote in his memoirs. .

The multi-ton plate that covered the reactor from above just fell off like a lid off a saucepan. As a result, the reactor was completely dehydrated, uncontrolled nuclear reactions began in it, and an explosion occurred. 140 tons of radioactive substances poison the air and people. From all over the city, a strange glow can be seen above the power unit. But few people see him - the city sleeps peacefully.

01:27 . A fire starts in the premises of the power unit. Two NPP employees die under the wreckage - the operator of the MCP pumps (Main circulation pump) Valery Khodemchuk (the body was not found, heaped under the wreckage of two 130-ton drum separators), and the employee of the commissioning enterprise Vladimir Shashenok (died of a fracture of the spine and numerous burns at 6:00 in the Pripyat Medical Unit, on the morning of April 26).

01:30 . An alarm went off at the station. The first fire brigade is going to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Within a few minutes, he begins to extinguish the power unit, without proper protection from radiation. The level of radiation is so high that after a while, firefighters suddenly become victims of "radiation poisoning": "nuclear sunburn", vomiting, the skin is removed from the hands along with the mittens.

H the fourth power unit after the disaster. Power nuclear reactor, developed under the leadership of the President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and Director of the Institute named after Kurchatov Anatoly Alexandrov. In the 70s - 80s it was the most powerful reactor in the Soviet nuclear power industry.

01:32. Director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Viktor Bryukhanov wakes up from a call from a colleague who sees a glow over the station from the city. Bryukhanov jumps to the window and for a while stands silently, watching the terrible picture of the catastrophe. Then he rushes to call the station, but no one picks up the phone for a long time. In the end, he calls the duty officer and calls an emergency meeting. He leaves for the station.

01:40. An ambulance arrives at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. What happened is not really explained. The 28-year-old doctor on duty at the Pripyat hospital, Valentin Belokon, saw that there was nowhere to take the injured: the door of the health center of the administrative building No. 2, which served the 3rd and 4th power units, was closed. There were not even "petals" protecting the respiratory organs. I had to help the victims right in the ambulance. Fortunately, in the car there was a package for first aid in case of a radiation accident. It contained disposable intravenous infusions. They immediately went to work.

01:51. 69 firefighters and all ambulances of the city of Pripyat were sent to the accident site. Firefighters are also coming from the surrounding cities. Part of the roof has been demolished, a mixture of molten metal, sand, concrete and fuel particles is flowing down the walls of the nuclear power plant. They also spread over the sub-reactor rooms.

02:01. Despite the accident at the fourth unit, the remaining reactors of the nuclear power plant produce energy in the normal mode. Firefighters continue to work on the roof, some with severe signs of exposure. Some lose consciousness - more persistent comrades endure them on themselves. The fires on the roof of the engine room and the reactor compartment of the station are gradually being extinguished. The spread of fire to neighboring power units was prevented. At the cost of incredible self-sacrifice firefighters.

02.10. Mikhail Gorbachev is awakened and informed of the Chernobyl accident. He later said that he was not told immediately about the extent of the disaster. Therefore, he limited himself to only instructing the government of the USSR to convene a meeting in the morning. And then goes to sleep.

02:15. Sergey Parashin, secretary of the party committee of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, says: “At about 2.10-2.15 am we were at the station. When we drove up, there was no fire. depressed. I asked him: "What happened?" - "I don't know." He was generally laconic and at the usual time, but that night ... I think he was in a state of shock, inhibited. I'm afraid that the director so no one reported that the reactor was blown up. Not a single deputy chief engineer gave the wording "the reactor was blown up. And the chief engineer Fomin did not give it. Bryukhanov himself went to the area of ​​​​the fourth block - and also did not understand this. Here is a paradox. People did not believe in the possibility of a reactor explosion, they developed their own versions and obeyed them."

02:21. The first victims have already begun to arrive at the medical center. However, doctors could not immediately determine the level of real doses received by people due to the lack of information about the levels of radioactive radiation in the premises of the 4th unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as well as in the surrounding areas. In addition, the victims were irradiated comprehensively, and many received extensive thermal burns. Shock conditions, nausea, vomiting, weakness, "nuclear tan" and swelling speak for themselves.

03:30. At the crash site, background radiation is measured. Before that, it was impossible to do this, because at the time of the accident, the standard control devices failed, and compact individual dosimeters simply went off scale. Only now is the understanding of what actually happened is coming to the employees of the nuclear power plant - the radiation is going through the roof.

05:00. The fire on the roof of Unit 4 has been extinguished. However, the fuel continues to melt. The air is filled with radioactive particles. Gradually comes the understanding of the scale of the disaster.

06:00. Chernobyl duty officer Vladimir Shashenok died from a huge radiation dose and severe burns. And Alexander Lelechenko, deputy head of the electrical department, felt so good after the drop that he asked to "breathe the street air" - and he quietly left the medical unit and reappeared at the emergency unit to provide all possible assistance at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The second time he was taken immediately to Kyiv, where he died in terrible agony. In total, Lelechenko received a dose of 2,500 roentgens, so neither bone marrow transplantation nor intensive therapy saved him.

06:22. The air in the medical unit became so radioactive that the doctors themselves received radiation doses. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the doctors in the medical unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were the first to find themselves in such a difficult situation.

07:10. The doctors of the ambulance control room, located next to the emergency room in the building of the Pripyat hospital, have to see dozens of patients at the same time. But the room is designed to receive up to 10 people - the doctors have a limited supply of clean linen and only one shower unit. With the usual rhythm of city life, this is quite enough, but now the doctors are in a panic - no less than their patients.

07:15. A team consisting of Uskov A., Orlov V., Nekhaev A., shift supervisor of the 4th unit of the Chernobyl Akimov A.F., senior reactor control engineer Toptunov L.F. started to work. Manually opening the controls and hearing the sound of water, they returned back to the blockboard. Upon returning to the control room-4, Akimov A.F. and Toptunov L.F. becomes bad. They are rushed to the hospital.

07:50. "Did you have graphite blocks lying around here before the accident?" "No, we just had a subbotnik by May 1." This is a dialogue between Chernobyl Unit 4 shift supervisor Viktor Smagin and Vyacheslav Orlov, deputy head of reactor shop No. 1 for operation.

08:00. Nikolai Karpan, deputy head of the nuclear physics laboratory, says: “We arrived at the station at eight o’clock in the morning. So I got into the bunker ... The first thing I encountered in the bunker and that seemed very strange to me was that we didn’t know what happened, "No one said anything about the details of the accident. Yes, there was some kind of explosion. And we had no idea about the people and their actions committed that night. Although work on localizing the accident was going on from the very moment of the explosion. Then, later , on the same morning I tried to restore the picture myself. I began to ask people. But then, in the bunker, we were not told anything about what was happening in the central hall, in the turbine hall, which of the people were there, how many people were evacuated to the medical unit, what doses are there, at least presumably... All those present in the bunker were divided into two parts. People who were in a stupor - the director, the chief engineer were clearly in shock. influence it. Change it for the better."

08:10. So far there has been no official announcement from the authorities. Children go to school. But residents of Pripyat learn news about the accident from their neighbors and acquaintances, many are already sitting on their suitcases and waiting for official news - for example, about the announcement of an evacuation. But for now, word of mouth is working.

09:00. Rumors about the accident reach Kyiv - from friends and relatives in Pripyat. They quickly spread throughout the capital of the Ukrainian SSR. There is no panic yet (no one understands the real scale of the tragedy). But worrisome. They say that the party bosses and the leadership of the KGB are already evacuating their families from Kyiv. The official statement about the accident will be only on April 28.

09:10. Alexander Esaulov, deputy chairman of the city executive committee of the city of Pripyat, says: “I am sitting in the medical unit. As I remember now: the block is like on the palm of my hand. Near, right in front of us. Three kilometers from us. Smoke was coming from the block. Not that black ... such a trickle smoke. Like from an extinguished fire, only from an extinguished fire it is gray, and this one is so dark. Well, then the graphite caught fire. It was already late in the evening, the glow, of course, was what we needed. There is so much graphite ... Not a joke. And we - can you imagine? - sat with the windows open all day.

09:46. Anatoly Dyatlov, Deputy Chief Engineer of the Chernobyl NPP: “In the Pripyat hospital, the dosimetrist measured, threw off everything, washed, changed and went to the ward. Completely broken, immediately on the bed - to sleep. , then do what you want. "Persuasion is useless. And a strange thing, after the dropper that they poured in - I don’t know, there’s no sleep, vivacity appeared, and I left the ward. Others have the same thing. Lively conversations in the smoking room, and everything about , and about that. Reason, reason, reason?".

10:00. By this time, many people already know about what happened in Pripyat. But few understand what really happened. Patrols with dosimeters and gauze bandages walk the streets. Some residents, without waiting for the announcement of the evacuation, pack their bags and leave for friends and relatives - some to Kyiv, and some outside Ukraine.

10:10. The first watering machines left for the streets of Pripyat. Stalls and kiosks began to close. And schoolchildren were given iodine-containing tablets in the morning.

10:25. Even many residents of the town of nuclear scientists could not imagine the scale of the tragedy. Many went out onto the balconies and watched through binoculars for an incomprehensible glow at the station in broad daylight. Who was in the know, he drove the curious back to the apartments with mats. "There's an explosion, we're all irradiated," they shouted in the streets.

10:30. A south wind blows in Chernobyl, driving away radioactive masses to the north. Away from Kyiv. towards Belarus. And further to Scandinavia (where an increased level of radiation will soon be recorded). In the near future, Western "radio voices" will begin to talk about the accident with might and main. The Soviet media will continue to remain silent.

10:40. The first military helicopters flew to the reactor. They began dumping bags of sand and boric acid into the reactor. As Mykola Volkozub, a colonel of the Ukrainian Air Force, a sniper pilot, later recalled, there was a continuous crackle in the headphones of the headset, the arrow of the onboard dosimeter went off scale. To measure the temperature, helicopters had to hover over the reactor vent at the lowest possible altitude, which sometimes reached 20 meters.

10:45. The first operational interdepartmental group of nuclear specialists from Moscow, Leningrad, Chelyabinsk and Novosibirsk arrived in the capital of Ukraine.

11:00. Party organs got in touch with the director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Viktor Bryukhanov. In his report, he spoke about the explosion to the second secretary of the Kyiv regional committee of the CPSU. At the same time, Viktor Bryukhanov assured the responsible officer that the radiation situation at the station was within normal limits and did not pose any threat.

Photo: MK/Victor Bryukhanov, Director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

11:15. In the city school of Pripyat, a teacher's meeting was urgently assembled. The city authorities announced that there was an accident at the nuclear power plant and it was temporarily isolated. However, there is no radiation leakage. At the same time, they advised not to let schoolchildren go out into the street.

11:30. Columns of military equipment began to enter the city - armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and sapper obstacles. At first, conscript soldiers were without even the most primitive petal respirators. In Pripyat, television was suddenly turned off. Helicopters were constantly flying in the sky above the city.

11:45. In Moscow, an emergency meeting continues at the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU demanded from scientists an urgent assessment of the situation. However, there is still little information, and scientists find it difficult to assess the real situation. The only practical decision that was made was to fly to Kyiv at 16:00 to sort out the situation on the spot. The delegation should be headed by Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Boris Shcherbina. He was urgently recalled from a business trip. Until the conclusions of the Government Commission, it was decided not to make any statements. The decision on the evacuation, the possibility of which the Ukrainian party leadership requested Moscow, is also not accepted.

12:00. Orders were issued to send the students home. When one of the teachers asked the children to cover their faces with homemade gauze bandages, people in civilian clothes, seeing the students on the streets in this form, ordered to remove the bandages.

12:15. Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl NPP, recalls: “My wife came. She brought cigarettes, a razor, toiletries. She asked if vodka was needed? There was already a rumor that vodka is very useful with a large dose of radiation. damned-native is useful, but because, it turned out, he refused for a long four and a half years. Of course, it’s a small loss, and if voluntarily. Still, they drank on April 26, I don’t remember who they brought it to. On the evening of the 26th, they sent the first batch to Moscow. They announced the landing and the women who saw off wailed. I said: "Women, bury us early." By all the symptoms, I realized the seriousness of our situation, frankly, I thought - we will live. Not for everyone, my optimism was justified. "

12:30 . At an emergency meeting of the city committee of the CPSU, a decision was made not to report anything about the true extent of the tragedy, which had become known by that moment. However, it was decided to begin the evacuation of the inhabitants of Pripyat on April 27. "Let them not take a lot of things with them - only the most necessary things. This is only for three days," party workers instructed subordinates.

12:45. Nobel laureate in literature Svetlana Aleksievich, in her book "Chernobyl Prayer", written on the basis of the memoirs of people who survived the disaster, cites the following testimony: "My friend Tanya Kibenok comes running. Her father is with her, he is in a car. We sit down and go to the nearest village for milk, about three kilometers outside the city. We buy a lot of three-liter cans of milk. Six - to be enough for everyone. But everyone vomited terribly from milk ... The victims lost consciousness all the time, they were given droppers. Doctors for some reason said that they were poisoned by gases, no one spoke about radiation. And the city was filled with military equipment, all roads were blocked. Soldiers were everywhere. Electric trains stopped running. Nobody spoke about radiation. Some military men wore respirators. Citizens carried bread from shops, open bags of sweets. Cakes lay on trays. Ordinary life. Only... They washed the streets with some kind of powder..."

13:00. Word of mouth worked, and the first rumors about a terrible explosion at a nuclear power plant began to spread around Kyiv. People retell them to each other, but real panic is still far away. Radio and TV do not report anything about the disaster.

13:15. As the user of social networks with the nickname mamasha_hru recalls, the morning of April 26, she remembered for a lifetime: "Mom woke me up for school and it turned out that Dina, my older sister, had not left for the competition. Although she was supposed to be at six in the morning. To the question" why?" Mom replied that they weren't allowed in. Who didn't let them in? How didn't they let them in? In general, mother and Dina honestly stomped to the bus station at six and there people in uniform told them to turn around and quickly go home. It was about six in the morning. Let me remind you, it exploded at half past one in the morning. There was no one to ask and consult my mother with: there was no telephone, my father went on a business trip, and it was too early to knock on the neighbors. As a result, in the morning, my mother sent Dina and me to school. Unprecedented things were also happening at school "There was a wet rag in front of each door. Near each washbasin there was a piece of soap, which had never been there before. Technical technicians rushed around the school, wiping everything they could with rags. And, of course, there were rumors. True, in the performance of second graders, rumors about an explosion on the stations looked completely unreal, and the teachers didn't say anything. So I didn't worry too much. And already at the beginning of the second lesson, two aunts came into the classroom and quickly distributed two small pills to everyone.

Photo: mk.ru/Measuring the level of radiation in the Chernobyl zone

13:30. In the afternoon, people in both Kyiv and Pripyat began to call each other and warn that it was better not to go out into the street, and windows and vents should be closed. “We didn’t even have a clue what a dosimeter was. And not everyone in the city of nuclear scientists was aware of what radiation was, what its threat was,” recalls Alexander Demidov, a former resident of Pripyat.

13:45. A team of doctors from the 6th clinic in Moscow arrives in Pripyat. Under the leadership of Dr. Georgy Dmitrievich Selidovkin, the first batch of affected liquidators was selected from 28 people and urgently sent to Moscow. They acted quickly, there was no time for tests, so the selection was carried out according to the degree of nuclear tan. At three o'clock in the morning, already on April 27, the plane with the injured on board flew from Boryspil to Moscow.

14:00. From the memoirs of a resident of Pripyat, Helena Konstantinova, who was eight years old at the time of the disaster: “My classmate’s dad was on duty at the station just on the night shift, on April 26. She told us in class what he talked about with her mother, in the morning after the shift "I remember that she told me that my father talked about a strong explosion. And then at the lesson the teacher gave us iodine tablets. After classes, my parents and I went to the river. We saw the station from afar, looked at it through binoculars. I asked my mother: "Why is there smoke? Mom said there was an accident.

14:15. Anatoly Kolyadin, an employee of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, also became one of the first liquidators. I learned about the accident in the morning, at the bus stop, when I was on my way to my shift. "But no one talked about the dead. We were dropped off at the checkpoint, and the bus left. Some warrant officer did not let us in. They began to call the station shift supervisor from the checkpoint. We begin to understand that the radiation situation at the station is very bad: the reactor collapsed, there is no tent, separators are shining. Smoke is oozing from the shafts of the fourth reactor. We have nowhere to go. Finally, they let us in. We began to make our way to the workplaces. We run, and pieces of pipes and graphite are lying everywhere. This means that the core has been opened. I managed to call my wife from work, warned: "Lyuda, do not let the children out of the house. Close the vents." Children still remember how they cried, asked their mother to let them out to play outside. The picture was terrible: children play in the sandbox, and armored personnel carriers drive through the streets, soldiers in chemical protection and with gas masks are everywhere. "

14:30. There were two realities in Pripyat and Chernobyl. Hell - at the station itself, and an avalanche of rumors in the cities of nuclear scientists. In every family, at least someone worked at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. People reassured each other and advised each other not to go outside and close the windows. News began to seep into the people from a closed meeting of the city committee of the CPSU. But no one realized the seriousness of what had happened anyway. They said that the accident would be fixed in three days, well, a maximum of a week.

14:45. However, all hopes for a speedy settlement of the situation were in vain. But then they didn't even think about it. In the meantime, the western wind was carrying a giant radioactive cloud to Belarus, Poland and the rest of Europe.

15:00. While people lived in Pripyat with rumors and hopes, and at the station itself the liquidators were fighting a nuclear nightmare, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian dry red wines began to be massively imported into Kyiv stores.

15: 15. Meanwhile, in Moscow, at the Vnukovo airport, members of the government commission gathered. Everyone is waiting for Deputy Head of the Council of Ministers Boris Shcherbina, who is about to arrive in Moscow from a business trip. Everyone is tense and laconic. “Perhaps we have witnessed a huge catastrophe, something like the death of Pompeii,” academician Valery Legasov thinks aloud.

15:30. The first day of the Chernobyl disaster was coming to an end, and despite all the rumors and the first signs of a terrible tragedy, it was quite calm in Pripyat. In practice, the city lived a normal life.

16:00. If women in Pripyat for the hundredth time repeated advice to each other to close the windows, then many of the men discussed the upcoming match of the USSR football championship between Dynamo Kiev and Spartak Moscow, which was to be held on April 27 in Kiev. From the crash site to the capital's stadium is only 130 kilometers. Looking ahead, let's say that Dynamo won that match with a score of 2-1. And 82,000 spectators gathered at the Republican Stadium in Kyiv.

16:15. Despite the fact that the courtyards and back rooms of Kyiv shops are crammed with boxes of red wine, bottles are not put on the shelves. Store managers were given the strange command to wait for special orders to start selling.

16:30. The director of the nuclear power plant, Viktor Bryukhanov, realizes the full depth of the tragedy and begins to ask the chairman of the Pripyat city executive committee to begin the evacuation of the population. However, he is told that this issue is within the competence of the government commission from Moscow, which is already flying to Kyiv. Precious time is running out fast.

Photo: pripat.city.ru/Fourth from the right is Vladimir Voloshko, chairman of the city executive committee of Pripyat

16: 50. The head of the government commission, Boris Shcherbina, has finally arrived at Vnukovo Airport. Members of the commission urgently enter the liner, which is heading for Kyiv. During the flight, Academician Valery Legasov explains to a high-ranking Soviet official how nuclear reactors are arranged at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Photo: Life.ru/Head of the commission Boris Shcherbina

17:15. In the military units of the Belarusian, Kyiv, Carpathian and Odessa military districts, under the guise of exercises, they began to make urgent measurements of the background radiation. The data went to Moscow, to the State Security Committee.

17:45. The 12th Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Defense, which oversaw all issues related to nuclear weapons, had all the information about the tragedy. In the units that were subordinate to this department, security measures were immediately taken, even in those that were located very far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. For example, at a secret base located in the north of the GDR, at a distance of 1493 km from Kyiv. Here is what reserve sergeant Yuri Palov, who served there in 1984-86, told Strana.

“Toward the evening of April 26, an order was received to limit their stay outside the barracks, and everyone was obliged to get chemical protection kits, and then an order was received to put them on. The officers began to say something about endurance exercises. Union with a delay of two days. Therefore, they did not even guess. And then, when our radio operators from the ZKP came off duty, they said that Western voices were broadcasting with might and main that a nuclear power plant had exploded in Chernobyl. That was the first time I heard this word !", - said Yuri Palov.

18:15. A government plane from Moscow landed safely at the Kiev Borispol airport. Right on the runway, the members of the commission were met by the entire leadership of Ukraine, headed by the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine Volodymyr Shcherbytsky. Everyone is extremely worried. After exchanging short, not quite formal greetings, both the members of the commission and the leadership of Ukraine got into cars and the cortege of black "Seagulls" and "Volga" rushed towards Pripyat.

Photo: bulvar.com.ua/Vladimir Shcherbitsky

18:50. Station workers, firefighters and ordinary citizens continue to arrive at the city hospital of Pripyat. People complain of burning in the throat and eyes, nausea and vomiting. Doctors demand telephone consultations from colleagues from Moscow Hospital No. 6. Doctors in the capital advise giving patients a mixture of iodine and water.

19:30. The cortege with the government commission made its first stop, about 90 kilometers from Pripyat. Everyone got out of the cars. Academician Valery Legasov, head of the union commission Boris Shcherbina, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Vladimir Shcherbitsky and other members of the government commission for the first time saw a glow over the station on the horizon. A bright scarlet glow occupied almost half the sky.

20:00. The evening sky over Pripyat was bright. The glow from the nuclear fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was visible from everywhere. As the townspeople later recalled, it was in the evening that an inexplicable feeling of fear swept over everyone. Residents hid in their apartments, and military patrols with dosimeters quietly walked along the unusually empty streets of the city. And military equipment drove up to the administrative building of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

20:20. The cortege with members of the USSR government commission drove into the city and stopped in complete silence on the central square of Pripyat.

20:30. The assembly hall of the local city executive committee was packed to capacity with leaders of all levels, from the instructor of the city committee of the CPSU to the top engineering and technical personnel of the station. Everyone was waiting for the government commission from Moscow to immediately make the right decisions and explain in detail what to do and how to do it. The meeting began with a short report by NPP Director Viktor Bryukhanov.

21:00. The US National Security Agency received the first satellite images of the Chernobyl explosion, and after their processing and preliminary expert opinion, these data ended up on the desk of President Ronald Reagan. He immediately sends a request to Moscow via the hotline and does not receive any information. The Soviet leadership remains silent.

21:30. After the report of the director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and after conferring with the members of the commission, its head Boris Shcherbina gives an urgent order to the military to urgently send units of the chemical defense troops and helicopter formations of the Kyiv military district to Kiev.

22:40. The first helicopters from a military squadron based in the north of Ukraine, near Chernigov, reach Pripyat. Their crews make the first overflights of the station itself and directly the fourth power unit, where the explosion occurred. Academician Valery Legasov boarded one of the aircraft and asked the crew to fly directly over Unit 4.

23:00. After landing, Academician Valery Legasov reported to Boris Shcherbina that the most terrible thing had happened. The reactor exploded. He said that he saw the remnants of nuclear fuel and graphite rods glowing bright red. The lid of the reactor was torn off by the explosion and lay almost vertically. The scientist could not assess the possible probability of a second explosion.

23:15. After a conversation with Legasov and the military, the head of the government commission, Boris Shcherbina, gives an urgent order to start an urgent evacuation of the entire population of Pripyat on the morning of April 27. An urgent order to drive all vehicles to Pripyat went to bus depots and mechanized convoys of the Kyiv region. It was decided to take the inhabitants of the city to the villages and small towns of the Kyiv, Bryansk and Gomel regions.

Photo: rusakkerman.livejournal.com

23: 50. In Moscow, in the radiological department of clinic No. 6, there were no more places. At least 200 people were brought here, the very first heavy liquidators. All free space is filled with bunks with firefighters and employees of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant delivered from Pripyat. Dosimeters go off scale. Patients are given painkillers. Doctors literally fall off their feet from fatigue.

00:00. The first day of the Chernobyl disaster is over. But the worst is yet to come. Thousands of victims, broken destinies, lies of party officials and the greatness of the spirit of ordinary soldiers, firefighters, doctors and policemen.

On May 1, a festive demonstration will take place in Kyiv, and a few days after it, people will begin to storm trains and buses leaving Kyiv.

The truth about the tragedy, despite the total silence of the authorities and the press in the first days after the disaster, still broke out. And, as always happens, she began to give rise to monstrous rumors. Rumors were circulating around Kyiv about new explosions, due to which the city could fall underground.

Photo: AP / May 9, 1986. Kievans in line for forms to check for radioactive contamination

The first official announcement about the catastrophe was made only on April 28 at 21:00 in the main TV show of the USSR "Vremya". The announcer read out a dry text: "An accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. One of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the incident. The necessary assistance has been provided to the victims. A government commission has been created to investigate the incident."

"Thanks to the effective measures taken today, we can say: the worst is over. The most serious consequences have been prevented," he said in a televised address. Mikhail Gorbachev visited the station itself only in 1989.

Photo: TASS / Mikhail Gorbachev arrived at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with his wife Raisa

Meanwhile, real panic reigned in Europe. In Poland, farmers poured milk on the ground, in other countries they began to massively slaughter domestic and wild livestock - the indicators of radioactive contamination simply went off scale.

Photo: AP / May 12, 1986. An employee of a slaughterhouse in Frankfurt am Main puts stamps on the suitability of meat. In Germany, after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, all meat began to be subjected to radiation control

Photo: AFP/June 1986. A Swedish farmer removes fallout-contaminated straw

Two years will pass and academician Valery Legasov, who was the first of the scientists to look into the mouth of the reactor, hangs himself in his apartment. The official version is a depressed state due to increased responsibility. Before his death, he recorded on a dictaphone a story about little-known facts relating to the disaster (part of the message was deliberately erased by someone). Based on the materials of these audio recordings, the BBC made the film Survive the Disaster: The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster.

Photo: tulapressa.ru/Academician Valery Legasov

On July 3, 1986, Chernobyl director Viktor Bryukhanov was expelled from the party by the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU "for major mistakes and shortcomings in work that led to an accident with serious consequences." And on July 29, 1987, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced him to 10 years in prison to be served in a correctional labor institution of a general type.

Photo: Izvestia / Viktor Bryukhanov, first from the left, in the dock

According to the World Health Organization, the precisely established number of Chernobyl victims who died from cancer after severe exposure reaches 4,000 people. Another 5,000 people were in the group that received a smaller, but quite harmful dose of radiation. WHO experts note that there is no clear evidence of increased mortality and morbidity among the 5 million people who still live in the contaminated territories of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

However, there is another point of view, some Western scientists believe that the number of deaths due to radiation after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant can reach a million people.