And the first time with him. These questions were discussed with the director. The Operative group had to take many decisions about accepting or rejecting help from abroad, that was proposed at some time. Kursk, Chernobyl, Smolensk NPPs, all use these RBMK reactors. They retired him. That is why they came to personally sort these matters out at the location. But it was reported in such a way that one of them died from physical trauma while the second from chemical burns. Many young people arrived. This was a difficult environment. It seemed new to me, although not entirely new because both of them had already been tried by the Americans. We drove up to the building of the Pripyat City Committee of the Party, placed ourselves in a hotel nearby, where we stayed for about ten days in Pripyat itself, but the headquarters. These problems were what we were worried about. [7] Viktor Alekseyevich Sidorenko called for immediate evacuation of Pripyat, which Legasov supported, as the situation was expected to deteriorate in the town, and this decision was approved by Shcherbina. And that I must be at Vnukovo, at the airport, at 4 oclock to fly out. The thermocouples were lowered from long halyards. That the European part of the Soviet Union, where 80 per cent of the population and industry is concentrated, will not survive on shipped fuel; and Donetsk coal became too expensive and too little. The lack of and the unprompted removal of the third elementplacing dangerous devices in a kind of mandatory capsule that would limit the possibility of activity leaving the station or the device itself. Secondly, we cannot talk about the hydrogen explosion without mentioning that, in addition to the steam explosion, chemical energy related to interactions within all that molten mass was added. After that, Ukraine representatives, comrade Plyusch and comrade Nikolaev, started to prepare for the evacuation of the city scheduled for the next day. Around the same time when the fate of the 3rd block was decidedwell, because of such conditions its launch had been delayed from summer, for when it was planned, to autumnthe necessity of setting up and launching work on the 5th and 6th blocks was very keenly discussed. He and his associates showed great concern about the quality of the equipment that was supplied to the station. And teams had already been put in place beforehand. I was told that the members of the commission should gather at Vnukovo airport at 1600 hours. Radioactive emissions were still going on but, of course, getting lesser and lesser until about the 20th of May. For instance, did a one-day delay in taking action have any effect at all? This is Tape 1, part 2. Because we needed that information immediately, a first attempt to measure the gamma and neutron fields was made. This third element was requested by the Finns. The time available to solve it is not too small but not too much either. So this episode of installing the needle was described very elaborately and very, so to say, extensively. Concrete may fail due to high temperatures. But it means taking into our own hands issues that fall within the sphere of Civil Defence. In two hours, as I recall, 45,000 of all the 51,000 residents were evacuated. In these conditions, where on one side we had repetitive radioactivity measurements and on the other, the medics were limited by accepted order of things where the evacuation could only start when there was a risk of a person getting 25 biological roentgens per individual within some period of time. Adamovich: Another thing is that Sakharov came [Unclear]. Then the next one arrives and so it goes on. This is true for each and any case. [25], I did not lie in Vienna but I did not tell the full truth. The operators made mistakes because they had to complete the experiment which they considered a matter of honour. But lets get back to the Chernobyl events, from which I have deviated so far. At first, Sidorenko left me, and Shcherbina asked me to stay. Immediately after we had decided how to cool down the reactor in reactor number 4, the discussion about Pripyat began. All the time, new buildings, new stands and new people were required to do the work, because the number of devices was growing. And this wasnt because there was no such knowledge. But two weeks later, it happens in America, a phosphorous accident in two weeks. Immediately in that, room Alexander Grigoryevich Meshkov looked in - First Deputy Minister and said, that the Government Commission on the Chernobyl accident had been, Commission should meet at the Vnukovo airport by f, Immediately I left the asset, got into the car and went to my institute. For example, when there was a need to propose that the share of RBMK devices in nuclear energy be increased, then Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrovs support was required on this issue. For areas with higher temperatures that were located lower, we needed to deliver the metal, but then it would generate additional energy because of overoxidation. Radiation levels were measured at different points in vertical and horizontal space around the reactor. The first design mistake was that there should be at least two emergency protection systems, as required by international standards and as common sense suggests. But additionally, any person that had been on an NPP construction site was surprised at the potential of work being done so carelessly, even on such an important project. But nevertheless, the psychological shock and, say, because of that psychological shock, cardiovascular dystonia was found in a large number of experts and continues to be found up until now. This very thorough preparation for the refueling procedure took around half a year's time. Because of that our conversation was rather fragmented with long silences in between. And I reported to him when they arrived with Ligachev. Unfortunately, there was no local broadcasting network to announce this. Around this time, the helicopter people found a very effective way of operating by setting up an observation post on the roof of the Pripyat party committee building. I passionately worked in this area with the involvement of external organisations. But the Ministry of Health had developed these rules. The work was, as before, done in Chernobyl in the former regional Party Committee building, but the living accommodations were moved approximately 50 kilometres away from Chernobyl. So this is what it is. Some stayed in the villages they were evacuated to, others immediately got tickets and went to their relatives. It was clear that heat was being generated inside this fuel mass. Slowly, work progressed on alternative reactors. And the very fact that the station could independently perform any actions not authorised by the experts is already a defect in the relationship of the experts with this station. But I will tell you about the role of Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov later as objectively as I can. Because once we were 10-years late, then before anything, the question arose A line of cased reactors was developed in the world, similar to our water-water energy reactors VVER; like the one that had to be built near Minsk but will not be built now. So dont look at me as a person who The fact is that our institute was divided about this reactor. Legasov: He remained there, buried in the sarcophagus, while the second one did actually die from chemical burns because a fire broke out in an area. These divisions of the Ministry of Energy had taken part in the construction of the village at Green Cape, and also in the construction of many stations for the decontamination of vehicles, quite a lot of which had gathered on the site by then. And if a VVER explodes, and it can explode, the footprint would not be 80-90 kilometres; it would be 250 kilometres. The monstrosity of the mistakes lies in the philosophy of safety. But again, a commission led by comrade Voropaev was created. So he was fighting to make the likelihood of an accident at a station, knowing that there is no containment, minimal. [2][3][4] He attended secondary school in Kursk. And then those who drank Iodine, and children, in a large enough amount, they had greater stress on their thyroid gland. Because neither before nor after the high water in spring did the waters of the Dnieper basin contain dangerous levels of contamination that would pose a threat to human health. They are trying to increase the reliability of the reactor so that there would not be an accident. Legasov: No, as far as I know, Petrosyants was not specifically involved in these matters. So we have Chernobyl. the morning at the Ministry, which owns the Institute of Atomic Energy. Very interestingly, the station staff consisted of 45 people, if I recall correctly, who had to plan the reloading operation; that is they planned who, of the people that didn't work at the station, had to participate in the reloading. Legasov: Yes, it seems to be civilized. The Ministry of Power Engineering was the one who designed the equipment. G. Alimov interview with Legasov, Izvestia newspaper, 1987. International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology, State Committee for Science and Technology, Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, " , ", "Valery Legasov: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know", "Who was Valery Legasov, the Soviet scientist that saved the world from Chernobyl? devices. And further, to develop a philosophy that, as the experience of the Chernobyl accident shown, any device can cause trouble not only in the country where it is located but also in the neighbouring countries; and cause not only radiation damage but also economic and psychological losses in those countries. We had to avoid reaching a temperature of 2,500 degrees. Then the emission of these fuel particles ceased around the 2nd of May. The question should be thought through in such a way that the understanding of safe nuclear energy is as wide as possible and not limited only to the question of creating a safe reactor. This situation continues today. And a large army [of journalists] appeared there. And a station without containment would have contaminated everything. As for ongoing activities, I was involved with them only indirectly because it was not my speciality, and they were never assigned to me. There, led by Liashko, the head of the Ukrainian Government, was a huge crowd of black limousines. They, of course, spent most of their time on-site. These robots have played a huge role even today because many interesting things have been discovered with their help regarding the questions related to the nature and consequences of the accident. I find them monstrous, and have always found them monstrous. This was sort of central, very important task. And you, chemists, are now making him almost a great martyr And in Chernobyl he screwed up enough - the shelter of the fourth unit turned out to be far from optimal. Well, they are listed in the reports presented at Vienna. This created an uncomfortable situation. I already had 180 roentgens in me and, thank God, I knew how to act in situations like these. He would fill out all the measurement journals beforehand, all the parameters, even before the end of the shift. As for the physics and technology of reactors, it was a forbidden area for meboth because of my own education and because of the taboo imposed by Anatoly Pavlovich Aleksandrov and his subordinates working in this area. And then, it became a scramble across Europe. There were reverse cases as well, when, say, where should have been a wall according to the drawings, in reality, was a doorway. It would melt there, absorb the heat and also act as a protective shield to some extent. One, make the reactor maximally reliable. And I told this story to Shcherbina on the plane. This harmonious work of the researchers and the designers, in the end, led to a reliable construction. Right now, Im writing a note to Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, another one, where I say the same thing. During this break, Slavskys First Deputy, Meshkov Alexander Grigorievich, his First Deputy who was later fired because of this accident. Therefore, we must declare the evacuation right away. In his personal life, he composed poetry and encouraged its publication. Happily, a sufficiently large amount (forty tonnes) of boron carbide was available from an uncontaminated stockpile, and it was quickly dropped into the reactor by helicopters. The party organisation was removed. I remember that the quality of engineers and other personnel running the stations was falling. Since Ive already started talking about the army, then I must say that from the moment when the Soviet Army was charged with organizing the work, the scope of work was quite extensive, but the deployed chemical forces first had to scout and establish the contaminated area. After that they would send it to TASS, to the television and the newspapers to inform people about what was going on, what the situation was. And this caused appropriate alarm among professionals, in technical and engineering sense. I also talked about the specific situation, where the heavily contaminated areas were, where the situation was more or less favourable, and how the work was progressing. Note to Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, Another one, where I say the same thing that!, others immediately got tickets and went to their relatives to stay refueling procedure took around a. Already been put in place beforehand told this story to Shcherbina on the plane stations falling... 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