Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Reactor 4 (taken from helicopter in 1986)

Machine room under the Chernobyl Sarcophagus of Reactor 4, June 1992

The remains of Chernobyl Reactor 4, from the roof of the Reactor 3 (June 1986)

The explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986, is considered the worst nuclear accident in world history. On the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, it shares the highest rating with only Japan's 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster. In the early hours of Saturday, a botched safety test caused a series of explosions and fires in Reactor 4.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Chornobylʹsʹka Atomna Elektrostantsiya)

Chernobyl Power Plant Disaster

Virtual Tour of the Chernobyl Disaster without the Risk

Chernobyl Walking Tour

Between Pripyat and Chernobyl Town is a railroad bridge that serves as the main entry point into Pripyat. Prior to the Chernobyl Disaster, this bridge was just an innocuous feature of many people's day to day life.Following the Chernobyl Disaster, this innocuous bridge has earned a more sinister name amongst the locals: "The Bridge of Death." The story goes that on the night of the explosion, the roof of the burning building would have been visible from the bridge, which lays only 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) from the plant. The story goes on to say that some of the locals of Pripyat came out to the bridge to watch the "beautiful rainbow coloured flames" (Telegraph, 2009) as the core burned. Anyone standing on the bridge would have been exposed to some 500 roentgens, a fatal dose of radiation. It is believed that everyone who stood on the bridge later died.This story was later picked up and featured in HBO's highly successful television drama, Chernobyl.In the wake of Chernobyl's release, a storm of attention was turned to whether or not this event really happened. Shramovych and Chornous interviewed Oleksiy Breus, an engineer who had been working at the power plant since 1982 (2019). He personally entered the control room mere hours after the explosion and witnessed the immediate aftermath of the morning after the explosion. When asked if he thought anyone had been at the bridge, he said it was more likely that Pripyat's residents slept through the explosion. He himself did not learn about it until he arrived in the morning.Adam Higginbotham, author of Midnight in Chernobyl, spoke in an interview with Bulletin of the Scientists about having talked with a survivor and former resident of Pripyat, who was about 8 at the time, who said that he had taken his bike out to the bridge that night and had indeed watched the roof burning, but is today just fine and perfectly healthy (Stover, 2019).

The "Bridge of Death" is a railroad bridge that connects Pripyat and Chernobyl Town. The Bridge earned it's nickname when rumors began to circulate that residents of Pripyat came to the bridge to watch Chernobyl's roof burn, receiving a fatal dose of radiation in the process and later all dying of radiation injuries or sickness. These rumors likely inspired the bridge scene featured in HBO's miniseries, Chernobyl.However, there is no evidence of this event actually happening. It is most likely that almost everyone in Pripyat slept through the event. A survivor, then eight or nine at the time, did indeed bicycle to the bridge and watch, but he is still alive and healthy today.

Bridge of Death

Around dawn on Saturday, April 26, 1986, firemen who had been working on the fire at the CNPP were taken to Medical-Sanitary Center Number 126 (Pripyat’s 400-bed hospital) for treatment. The staff were not sure what they were dealing with at first but by 6:00 am they realized it was radiation sickness and notified the Institute of Biophysics in Moscow. Ninety people were admitted by morning, their radiation-soaked clothes were put in the basement where they remain. To avoid panic, no one in the city was alerted to the radioactive fallout being blown by the fire at the CNPP.Believing the fire at CNPP was under control and not dangerous to them, the citizens prepared for a normal Saturday by sending their children to school, enjoying the warm weather, and looking forward to the opening of the new amusement park during their May Day celebration. In these first few hours after the explosion, people should have been given stable iodine to protect their thyroid glands from the radioactive iodine filling the air. Although stable iodine is most protective 3-6 hours before exposure to radioactive iodine, within two hours protection is still 80% and after eight it is 40%, after 24 hours it is only about 7%. Because of the secrecy surrounding the event, dispensing tablets was delayed until nightfall on Saturday, 8-10 hours after radioactive iodine was first released. This delay led to people who were 0-18 years old at the time having more thyroid cancer than normal. Something preventable became a main health consequence.It was not until 10:00 AM Sunday morning that the order to evacuate was given. A combination of disbelief, a desire to avoid panic in the population, and not wanting to look foolish in the world spotlight meant hours passed without the city’s people being properly informed. Even after the order to evacuate was given, people did not know the extent of the disaster or radiation. They were told to leave their pets at home, take their papers, and pack enough clothes and food for three days. About 2:00 PM evacuation began and three and a half hours later 1,225 buses, 250 trucks and other vehicles like ambulances, repair trucks, and fuel tankers took the inhabitants of Pripyat away.While thick radioactive dust coated everything in Pripyat, workers tried to scrub buildings, sidewalks, and roads clean and trap radioactive particles under polyvinyl glue hoping to make the city ready for people to return. Most of the cats and dogs left behind were shot and buried because the radiation levels in their fur was so high. Finally, on June 3rd it was decided to stop trying to make the city habitable again. People trying to sneak in to retrieve papers, money, and belongings were turned away by the military, and soon, the city was fenced off in barbed wire.From July 25th to October 25th, a few residents at a time were given four hours to collect some of their belongings and say goodbye to their homes. Children’s items and items with high radiation levels were not allowed to be taken. The government gave each single person 4,000 rubles and each family 7,000. New cars at that time cost 5,000.The roses that were once placed in tended beds are wild, trees fill the soccer stadium, and the Olympic sized pool is empty. A sign proclaiming, “Hai bude atom robitnikom, a ne soldaton! (Let the atom be a worker, not a soldier!)” can still be seen. Levels of radioactivity in the area vary greatly. Walking through the city for a couple hours is generally the equivalent of flying in a plane for an hour, but the water on River Pripyat near the hospital is still highly radioactive. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is now the most popular tourist attraction in Ukraine, with about 300 people a day and up to 1,000, and Pripyat has both legal and illegal tourists. While many tourists are fans of books and video games based on the exclusion zone, others just want to be free to experience the area up close and learn about it. Photographers and filmmakers try to preserve it at least digitally even while tourists and Scrapers continue to rob it of materials and sometimes bring new items, like dolls, into the area to stage photographs. Illegal tourists, known as Stalkers, come for the experience and many are children of the 300,000 liquidators who helped clean up the area after the disaster. Frequent stalkers set up apartments and create areas to make food, giving little regard for radiation levels. Since Chernobyl and Fukushima have a nuclear accident in common, Japanese tourists and authorities visit Pripyat to study the economics of turning nuclear disaster into business as well as using it as a tool for psychological and social recovery.

Located in Ukraine 2.5 km from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) and founded in 1970, Pripyat was the ninth Soviet atomograd (atom city). It was designed for workers at the CNPP and their families. In 1986 Pripyat was home to 47,500 people and was expected to hold 75-85 thousand someday. Known as the City of Roses, 30,000 Baltic rose bushes were planted there to enhance the already beautiful setting where nature and science lived together in peace. That peace was tenuous and following the explosion of reactor four at the CNPP, the city was evacuated and remains a ghost town. In recent years, tourism has taken hold and Pripyat has become a model for Japanese officials hoping to revive the area around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Pripyat (Pryp'yat)

Before the Chernobyl disaster, the natural landscape around the CNPP was complimented by a monoculture plantation of Scots Pine. The citizens of Pripyat felt like they were part of the environment and many people built summer houses and tended vegetable gardens in the area away from the city. Unfortunately, the Scots Pine is highly radiosensitive and after the explosion at CNPP the trees absorbed the radiation. The chemical reaction that occurred inside the trees made them glow at night for about a month. When the pines died, their green needles became copper colored. The extreme change in coloration prompted the soldiers and scientists working there to nickname the area, “Red Forest.” Other trees with a high die off rate were birches and Black alders. In efforts to clean up the radiation in the forest, many trees were cut down by liquidators and buried in concrete lined tombs.Some animals in the area died immediately, others further away died when their thyroid glands disintegrated, and others stopped reproducing. Cattle near the area at the time of the disaster that did not die had a decline in birth rates and calf mortality went up. Mutations in the DNA of area animals have been found, but they do not seem to be ones that affect physiology or reproduction. Some have shorter lifespans than those outside of radiated areas, and some do better than others.Directly after the disaster, plants absorbed radiation on their surfaces, as that threat lessened, radiation was brought up by the plants root systems. The soil is still highly contaminated and cannot be used for large scale crops. Wheat grown in the radioactive soil mutated into several unstable strands, but soybeans seemed to change at a molecular level and be able to protect themselves from damage. Mushrooms absorb large amounts of cesium-139 and should not be eaten, but most of the apples grown in the area can be if the skin is removed. Stands of broadleaf trees that reseeded themselves and replanted pines are doing well. Some of the trees that survived the disaster have much larger needles and leaves than normal.One likely reason the flora and fauna are rebounding is that humans were taken out of the area. With the people and their companion animals and livestock gone, and hunting halted, the environment has had time to repair and revive itself. There is an increase in diversity of wildlife and many of the Ukraine’s threatened animals thrive here. Some, like wolves, elk, and lynx have repopulated themselves, while European Bison and Przewalski’s horse were introduced in 1998. The next generation of cattle from the area were smaller but the generation after that seemed to be normal. They are still too radioactive for human consumption. It seems removing humans from the area was a bigger benefit than the radiation was destructive.Despite the area still being unsafe, some people have been allowed to return to ancestral homes where they live off the land growing and harvesting their own food. They cannot have children with them, and children cannot visit. Many of those who returned are now in their 70s and 80s and although dangerous, they roast the mushrooms that grow wild in their ovens fired with radioactive wood. The smoke from their cooking fires causing mini fallouts over the area.One of the biggest concerns today is the large wildfires that frequent the area. Every fire releases radiation captured by trees into the air. Firemen are still stationed in the area and make do with little protective gear and old soviet era trucks. Although they have always been present, global climate change has been increasing the number of wildfires and their sizes. In 2020 firemen battled a gigantic blaze with the help of helicopters and other equipment. Rainfall finally put the fire out within a mile of the CNPP.

The forest surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) was an area the citizens of Pripyat cherished. After the explosion at reactor four, the environment was changed forever and the 10 square kilometer (3.86 square mile) area surrounding the CNPP became known as the Red Forest. With the people in Pripyat and other affected villages evacuated, the forest became a living lab to study the long-term effects of high radiation levels on ecosystems. The area has caught fire often in the years since the disaster and when it burns, radiation trapped in the trees is released into the air.

Red Forest

When construction began on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1972, little did construction workers know that a top secret construction project was happening 12 kilometers away from their location. The project, once completed, was called "Duga." Duga was to consist of three over over-the-horizon radio antenna that could theoretically detect nuclear missiles before they could actually reach the Soviet Union, giving the government enough time to decide if they needed to retaliate with their own missiles (Fedykovych, 2019).At the time of the Chernobyl Disaster, only two Duga stations had been built: Duga-1 in Chernobyl and Duga-2 in Eastern Siberia. The Chernobyl site consisted of a transmitter and a receiver. In the years since the project was shut down, Duga-2 has been taken down, with Duga-1 being protected by the fact that it is within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The antenna, pictured in this entry, stands 492 feet (150 meters) tall and some 2296 feet (700 meters) long. The signal the antenna gave off - 10MW - was later nicknamed "The Russian Woodpecker," because the noise sounded like a woodpecker pecking on wood.According to Dr. Fedir Dubrovka, the idea behind Duga was radio signals can only be pointed in a single direction. However, the Earth is round, and as such, a missile coming from America would not be detected, as it was coming over the curve of the Earth. Duga was supposed to send off a radio signal that could bounce off the ionosphere, down to Earth, back up into the ionosphere, etc, taking the signal around the curve of the Earth, and as such, allowing the missile to be seen (Youtube Movies, 2020).With this plan in mind, Duga-1 went live in July of 1976. Within months, the signal began to cause concern within the communication world, with the Federal Communication Commission writing numerous letters in complaint of the sound (Washington Star, 1976). When the USSR refused to answer questions about the signal, conspiracy theories began to spread. One such idea, floated in 1981 by NBC news station, was that supposedly the sound was to try and change human behavior by turning people into zombies (Youtube Movies, 2020).For all the concern Duga caused, the project had been doomed from the start. The scientists did not understand the ionosphere. The signal could not penetrate the Aurora Borealis, meaning it would be useless in detecting missiles from the US. Everyone working on Duga were aware of this and it was going to become apparent during an inspection set to run in September of 1986. However, before this could officially come out, the Chernobyl Disaster occurred, rendering the site uninhabitable. It became a convenient excuse to scrap the idea and do away with the project (Youtube Movies, 2020).At least, that is the official record. Even to this day, records and documents on the Duga Radar Stations were either destroyed or locked away. There are still many questions about Duga and until those records are released, we may never know the full story.

Duga was an over-the-horizon radar system, created by the Soviets to act as an early warning system during the cold war. Only two sites were created for Duga: Duga-1, located in Chernobyl, and Duga-2, located in Eastern Siberia. The third site was never built. Duga-1 operated from July 1976 until December 1986, as the radiation given off by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant made it too dangerous to stay on site, thus forcing the abandonment of the station. During it's time in service, many conspiracy theories arose around the distinctive 10HZ tapping noise the antennas gave off, with the noise being later nicknamed the "Russian Woodpecker."

Duga-1 Radar Station

There were construction delays, labor disputes, bureaucratic obstructions, and problems that occurred during this time such as the central heating system for the city breaking down which pushed back the move in date. However, the city was still able to be created and occupied in only two years. The city was intended to be both an apology to the displaced population of the Exclusion Zone and to the communist empire for the disaster while also showcasing Soviet unity through its design. It has different districts with architectural styles from Caucasus, Ukraine, Russia, and the Baltic states to represent this unity. Slavutych has been called a kaleidoscope of cultures because of this and was one of the last major feats of social and physical engineering from the Soviet Union.

Slavutych is the city that was built as a result of the disaster. Located 50 kilometers from Chernobyl, Slavutych was made to house many of those that had to evacuate from Pripyat. Construction for the city began in the Fall of 1986 and by October of 1988 the first settlers had moved in.

Slavutych

Rassokha Equipment Cemetery

The Monument was made in memory of the liquidators: the power plant operators, emergency and nonprofessional workers that helped to contain and decontaminate after the explosion. There is an estimated total of 600,000 to 800,000 people involved with the consequences in some way.The monument is composed of a centered Christian cross held high on a double pillar, a globe below that representing the fragility of the world, the chimney that served reactor blocks 3 and 4, and a plaque dedicating the monument to those that saved the world. Each side of the monument has four figures. On the right are four firefighters extinguishing the blaze. On the left are a dosimetrist, an engineer, and a doctor treating a patient succumbing to the effects of the radiation exposure. The monument has become an important symbol to remember the liquidators and the sacrifices they made.

In 1996, on the 10 year anniversary of the disaster, the Monument to Those Who Saved the World was unveiled. The Monument was funded and created by Chernobyl firefighters. With sculptures made of concrete, which is rumored to be the same concrete fed to the Sarcophagus when the structure was built, it stands in front of the fire station that sent the team of first responders to the site.

Chernobyl Power Plant Disaster

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Chornobylʹsʹka Atomna Elektrostantsiya)

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources