"IS EVERYBODY IN, THE CEREMONY IS ABOUT TO BEGIN"
Chernobyl
The fascination of this place has intrigued me for years, with its dark past and abandonment it was magnetising, on finding a company that provided organised tours, we made plans and headed to the most radioactive place on earth!
But first here's a little bit of history behind the disaster.
The Explosion
The date was April 26th 1986, and a fourth test was being demanded by Soviet authorities to determine the safety of reactor number four at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, or as we know it Chernobyl. Three previous tests had proved unsuccessful, to hurry it through the managers and chief operator were promised a substantial bonus if it was completed immediately. The test would assess the reactor's ability to keep working in the event of a power outage. After the crew had been instructed to lower the power of the reactor so that the test could be completed, a set of damning irreversible decisions were made and at 01:23 a.m a catastrophic explosion occurred leading to the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen.
Fireman
Firemen that arrived at the scene were initially told that the roof was on fire when actually the reactor was in meltdown and by spraying water made the problem much greater by creating clouds of radioactive steam, further spreading contamination. The first responder's sadly all lost their lives from horrific radiation poisoning, their uniforms are to this day in the basement of Pripyat Hospital and are still emitting dangerously high levels of radiation over 30 years later.
Bridge Of Death
The residents of Pripyat were unaware off the immense and fatal problems that the disaster was already causing, many had heard the explosion and came out to see what was happening. The memorable area where they gathered was a railway bridge, which was a good vantage point to watch the fire. This later became known as "The Bridge of Death" because everyone who had been there also sadly lost their lives to radiation issues.
Radioactive Uniforms In Hospital Basement
Bridge Of Death
Denial
Authorities and the Soviet government were in denial that this was a massive problem and tried to shield the incident from the world, a nuclear plant in Sweden over 1500 kilometres away detected high levels of radiation in the air and quickly worked it out that it was coming from Chernobyl, thankfully alerting the world to the catastrophe.
Evacuation
The soviet Union initially gave instructions not to evacuate Pripyat and surrounding villages as it would create panic amongst the population but after levels of radiation three hundred times higher than normal were recorded the authorities had no alternative and had to act quickly. One thousand, two hundred buses were sent in and residents were given two hours to gather minimal belongings, being told they would soon return. The complete evacuation of fifty thousand people took three and a half hours, thousands of these people developed cancers and medical complications in the years that followed, the numbers are unclear as the government figures are deceptive.
Global Response
The world rapidly became aware that the explosion was going to affect many countries and something had to be done immediately. Every hour the equivalent amount of radiation was being emitted to that of the nuclear bomb dropped in Hiroshima, a massive clean up strategy was ordered and put in place, half a million conscripts were enlisted to perform this duty, they were to be known as "The Liquidators". It was a truly Herculean task, the two thousand six hundred square kilometre exclusion zone had to be cleared and chemically cleaned, the land had to be overturned to bury the surface radiation, animals both wild and domestic had to be culled. Many buildings were demolished and buried, the complete area had to be sprayed by military planes and individuals had to chemically wash roads, vehicles and structures.
Denial
The Clear Up
Securing The Reactor
To make the reactor safe was undoubtedly the most dangerous task of all, helicopters were brought in and worked around the clock, dropping five hundred thousand tonnes of sand, lead and boron into the gaping hole to extinguish and cap the burning core of the reactor to stop the vapour cloud of radiation.
The roof of the reactor was deemed the most hazardous place on earth as the highly radioactive graphite that had contained the control rods was strewn everywhere. Initially machines and robots were airlifted on to the roof to clear the debris but all malfunctioned due to massive amounts of radiation. It was then decided that the only way was to use human "Bio-Robots"! Looking back it was madness, each man was allowed only forty to ninety seconds to run out onto the roof with a shovel, wearing minimal protection and push debris into the core of the reactor.
The next problem was considerably greater because the core was melting down through the structure and if it had reached the cooling tanks it would have given rise to a much greater explosion causing the three remaining reactors to detonate, making most of Europe including the UK uninhabitable. Miners were deployed to rectify these problems, finally putting an end to further impending disaster.
The Sarcophagus
The first sarcophagus to encase the damaged reactor was constructed from steel and concrete, this initially contained the radiation, but was only estimated to last for twenty five years . A consortium of countries were brought together to plan, build and finance a modern hi-tech replacement structure. It is designed with a clever air circulation system to stop corrosion and robotic cranes, allowing the damaged reactor to slowly be dismantled and disposed of without any physical human intervention. Work started in 2010 and was eventually finished in 2017, costing over two Billion euros.
positivity
This huge human sacrifice and colossal financial cost showed the world how dangerous nuclear power can be if not treated with the utmost respect.
The only positive steps that arose from this disaster was the political reformation of the Soviet Union, leading to the open information policy of Glasnost and the ending of The Cold War.
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Break on through to the other side!