REVIEW - Chernobyl. 34 Years On. Horrors Of Worst Nuclear Disaster In History Still Haunt Mankind

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th April, 2020) 1:23:45, April 26, 1986 - this is the exact date and time of the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear plant, after which people across planet Earth learned about an invisible enemy - radiation - which can quickly destroy the whole structure of your body and pollute the environment.

The Chernobyl plant, called the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station in the Soviet era, was built near the town of Pripyat, nearly 70 miles from Kiev in Soviet Ukraine in the 1970s. The plant operated on RBMK � graphite-moderated nuclear power � nuclear reactors, which were commonly used throughout the Soviet Union. Before the nuclear disaster, Pripyat, which was founded as a model Soviet nuclear town, had a population of about 50,000 people. The average age of the population was 26.

On the night of April 25, 1986, engineers at Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor began a series of tests of the electrical control systems. The experiment was only running less than a minute but the reactor quickly came to the verge of exploding due to high pressure. At 1:23:40, one of the operators pressed the AZ-5 button, also known as an emergency shutdown of the reactor. However, the move had the complete opposite effect. Seconds later, the whole reaction and the power surge led to a massive blast � some reports say blasts � which ripped open the lid of the reactor, and in turn, allowed massive levels of radiation into the atmosphere. The time of the blast � 1:23:45 (other data suggest 1:23:47) � was the time that changed the world forever.

The explosion partly destroyed the reactor core, igniting a massive fire. Valery Khodemchuk, an engineer at the plant, became the first of numerous victims of the disaster. His body was buried under the debris of reactor No. 4 forever.

Minutes later, a group of unsuspecting firemen was called to extinguish the blaze. Not knowing the scale of the disaster, they worked without radiation protective equipment. Days and weeks later they, together with the majority of the reactor's personnel, would die from acute radiation. Years later, a monument dedicated to the firefighters was erected near the plant, called the Monument To Those Who Saved the World.

However, due to the attempts of some of the plant's high-ranking staff and Soviet secrecy to underplay the severity of the disaster, the evacuation of Pripyat was delayed. On April 26, people still went to work and schools, and life was normal until the first patients with nausea, headaches and a metallic taste in their mouths began to arrive at the town hospital.

The days, months and years following the disaster became a never-ending chain of liquidation efforts. The authorities evacuated all of Pripyat's residents in a panic, and 116,000 more were forced to leave the area and neighboring regions.

Some 190 tonnes of highly radioactive material was expelled into the atmosphere, exposing people to radioactivity 400 times greater than that from the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Over 30 people died gruesome deaths within days, weeks or months of the catastrophe after being exposed to fatal doses of radiation.

As a result, large parts of Ukraine, Belarus and the European part of Russia were affected. The radioactive isotopes reached eastern Europe, the Scandinavian nations, as well as Switzerland and Austria, contaminating crops, wildlife and people. The disaster led to increased amounts of cancer rates among children and adults, as well as to birth defects. Thousands are estimated to have died as a result of reradiation exposure.

Soon after the disaster, the Soviet Union set an exclusion zone that covered an area of about 1,000 square miles. Even now, 34 years later, the zone remains the most contaminated region in the whole world.

On July 7, 1987, six former officials and technicians at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant went to trial on charges of negligence and the violation of safety regulations. Three of them � former deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, former plant director Viktor Bryukhanov and former chief engineer Nikolai Fomin � were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

CHERNOBYL LIQUIDATOR: 'SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT'

In the aftermath of the tragedy, 600,000 people, later called liquidators, were called upon to deal with the consequences of the disaster. Picked from both military and civilians, the Chernobyl management team united people from different professions, including the reactors' personnel, firefighters, police, troops, medics, scientists and journalists. They are hailed for curbing both the immediate and long-term effects of the catastrophe.

Sergey Kovalchuk, one of the Chernobyl liquidators who carried out decontamination work at the infamous plant, recalls the two and a half months' experience at the scene in an interview with Sputnik.

When the accident happened, he lived in a village in the Zhytomyr region only 60 miles from the station. Two years later, in 1988, when the decontamination work at the nuclear station was still in full swing, he received an order saying that people needed to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Back then, everyone knew how dangerous it was to go there and what it meant to be a liquidator.

"I perfectly understood what it was. I went there [to Chernobyl] knowingly. Someone had to do it. Back then, I was a soldier in the Soviet army. So, I went there [to Chernobyl] to join the liquidation efforts. I could have refused. But I wore shoulder boards, how can I refuse an order?" he said.

Kovalchuk was sent to work near the sarcophagus, also known as the shelter structure, a massive steel and concrete construction covering nuclear reactor No. 4 building of the plant, aimed to limit the radioactive contamination of the environment following the disaster.

"We had such an amount of work there that it was impossible to cope with it in one year," he admitted.

He was specifically doing decontamination work at the power supply facility of the adjacent reactor No. 3 nuclear reactor. That reactor was not destroyed by the blast but everything in the zone was contaminated.

"Back then [in 1988], 700 milliroentgens per hour was considered to be a high level. This is 700,000 micro roentgen per hour. For comparison, the normal radiation background is 20-22 micro roentgen," he said.

Kovalchuk said that his main task was to lead the group of workers who had removed the contaminated solid concrete. He and the dosimetrist with a Geiger counter were the first to enter the room, and together they marked the contaminated parts of the concrete. He determined the amount of time the workers were to spend there � no more than 10-15 minutes � and then let the people in. The workers began to hammer the concrete and the dustmen, then gathered the concrete into bags and put them in Kamaz trucks, which took the radioactive concrete to the burial site.

"My task was to ensure that their task was completed, and so that the fighters would not receive more than the required dose of radiation at once. You can get 25 roentgen in one second, and this will be a huge dose, and you can get 25 roentgen in a year. These are two different things," he said.

People who worked at the site were 30-40 years old, mainly from the Donetsk region � now eastern Ukraine. They were all living in tents outside the decontaminated zone.

"We calmly get into cars, drive, reach the dirty [contaminated] zone, leave the so-called clean cars, get into dirty [contaminated] cars, then head to the plant and start working," Kovalchuk recalled his daily schedule.

On the way back to the tents, a person could catch more radiation by accident � his clothes could touch the contaminated rock, Kovalchuk explained. If such a situation happened, this person would have to change clothes immediately. Discipline and self-safety were above all, as everyone at the station knew that he did not need extra radiation exposure, Kovalchuk said.

Unlike the commanders, the soldiers were exposed to the maximum dose of radiation faster, so they were replaced faster.

"I used to say as a commander back then "a good soldier is a living soldier." The amount of the radiation dose must never be exceeded. Some used to say: 'Give me more time, and I will finish with this piece of concrete.' But I told them: 'No, stop, there will be another person to finish this work,'" he recalled.

If the equipment were exposed to radiation, they could not be remelted because even the furnace used to melt it would become radioactive.

"There was a lot of equipment � I saw with my own eyes � they were in the park behind the barbed wire, guarded by soldiers. They have a high level of radiation. It could not be used, but it was quite suitable [for work in the Chernobyl exclusion zone]," he recalled.

One of his friends took part in the removal of the radioactive debris from the roof of the No. 4 reactor back in 1986. This job was considered one of the deadliest since these people were exposed to an extremely high dose of radiation. Kovalchuk's friend twice took part in the decontamination work. He is still alive, yet he has undergone treatment and several surgeries.

"People die eventually. The radiation resistance is individual for each organism. Those who started their treatment from the very first days after the end of the service in Chernobyl, they live longer," he said. He himself undergoes treatment twice a year, and once a year he is treated at resorts with medical services. He admits that such procedures support his health.

Kovalchuk is now living in the city of Oryol in the south-western part of Russia. The Oryol region was one of the areas affected by the radiation from the Chernobyl plant. Every year, the city holds marches in memory of the victims of the tragedy. This year's celebrations were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2006, on the 20th anniversary of the disaster, the Oryol authorities unveiled the monument dedicated to the victims and the liquidators.

"My friend [also the liquidator] used to drive to the monument on the night from 25 to 26 of April, and light candles," Kovalchuk says.

In 2008, 20 years after his service at Chernobyl, Kovalchuk visited the area on a bus with his comrades. The decontamination work is still underway there. Thirty-four years have passed, but specialists are still removing the soil and bury the contaminated materials. The full nuclear clean-up is due to be completed in 2065.

He also saw the infamous Red Forest, the 4-square-miles area around the plant. It got its name after the ginger-brown color of the trees that died after they absorbed high levels of radiation during the disaster. The forest was bulldozed during the cleanup operations. Yet it is still considered one of the most contaminated places in the world.

"The forest was completely cut down, uprooted. It was a desert around Pripyat. And we arrived in 2008, we saw birches and pines. They reached 20 meters in height. Life wins anyway. People have destroyed it all, but it grew again," he said.

Their bus visited Pripyat. Kovalchuk recalled that the city has large avenues.

"But in 2008, the branches of the trees clicked on the bus fuselage. Nature takes its course" he said.

They finally reached the reactor and saw the sarcophagus on reactor No. 4 and the monument of the liquidators. They also visited the area where their tents stood. "It's all overgrown now," he recalled.

Though recalling and, thus, reliving these two months in Chernobyl was not easy, Kovalchuk believes that people should not forget these dark days in human history.

"In the name of those who are not with us, in the name of those people who laid down their health and life, it is necessary that they are remembered," he concluded.