He and his crew then stayed and manually pumped the emergency feedwater into the reactor. When the operators pushed the red button, the reactor didn't stop but exploded.". Akimov heard reports of massive reactor damage, but did not believe it, and as a result relayed false information about the state of the reactor for hours after. The guy that posted it was a Radiation Specialist and had access to records of a lot of the Chernobyl victims. The reactor power level had been reduced, preparing for a planned safety test. Chernobyl engineer Oleksiy Breus, then and now, beside the backdrop of the TV portrayal of the disaster, By Viacheslav Shramovych and Hanna Chornous, Mr Breus revisited the reactor's control room 20 years after the disaster struck, Viktor Bryukhanov (left) sits alongside deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov (orange shirt) and chief engineer Nikolai Fomin during a trial over the accident, British actor Adam Nagaitis played Vasily Ignatenko, one of the first firefighters on the scene of the disaster, The view of the damaged building from the roof of reactor No. And finally they said, The hell with it! What's the least amount of exercise we can get away with? Why Alex Murdaugh was spared the death penalty, Why Trudeau is facing calls for a public inquiry, The shocking legacy of the Dutch 'Hunger Winter', Why half of India's urban women stay at home. The Chernobyl cases have taught us that much needed (and still needs) to be improved in the clinical management of ARS in accident sit-uations generally complicated by radiation injury to the skin and injuries that are not radia-tion related. Raising power after this point put the reactor into a potentially dangerous state, due to Xenon poisoning, as well as design flaws in the reactor unknown to the operators. 0000000756 00000 n This is some other smaller problem.. In fact, theyre completely true. The Chernobyl disaster, considered the worst nuclear disaster in history, occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, then part of the Soviet Union, now in Ukraine. When the operators pushed the red button, the reactor didn't stop but exploded.". 0000013685 00000 n The Accident at Chernobyl: What Caused the Explosion? But Mr Breus believes most Pripyat residents would have slept through the explosion, and he only learned of the accident when he arrived at work the following morning. "I've never heard there was a crowd of people who went to watch the fire at night," he says. Ill say its him until proven otherwise! [4] Toptunov and Akimov received bone marrow transplants in attempt to restore their immune systems. Poor guy. Here's an interview with Kovalenko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnFeTe0nDw8. In July 1987, Chernobyls plant director Viktor P. Bryukhanov, chief engineer Nikolai M. Fomin, and deputy Anatoly S. Dyatlov were sentenced to two to ten years at a labor camp. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. While viewers may have difficulty grasping the scale of the war being waged inside the Exclusion Zone, its impossible to miss the human sacrifices it required. "They took off their clothes, but not like it was shown in the film, not right down to nothing," Mr Breus insists, also pointing out that their role was ultimately not significant to the story. [3][page needed] At some point he gave deathbed confessions stating repeatedly: I did everything correctly. However, the deputy chief engineer of the power plant Anatoly Dyatlov ordered to proceed with the tests. Akimov tries reassuring his even more shellshocked colleague, reactor engineer Leonid Toptunov, that they did everything right. 4. When Alexander has taken his duties, the reactor was in the state of preparation for the shutdown of the power. He was the third child of Tatiana Petrovna Ignatenko and Ivan Tarasovish Ignatenko. The actor playing Alexander Akimov, for instance, was never even put in makeup to depict the loss of his face. "It was clear they felt sick. Im not a religious man, but I suppose thats as religious as Ill ever feel. His family was informed that his death was the only reason he was not prosecuted for the accident. They were very pale. He was the one who refused to continue with the test. His parents visited him in the hospital. his younger brother is donating bone marrow but the transplant can't stop the decay of the tissue. After the humans evacuated, wildlife grew rapidly with limited predators to hunt them downwild boar multiplied eightfold in the two years following the disaster. Contents hide. "I was surprised they even brought us there," Mr Breus says of arriving at work the morning after the explosion. "Its high rankings show that people are still interested in Chernobyl. ", "Possibly, Anatoly Dyatlov became the main anti-hero in the show because that was how he was perceived by the power plant's workers, his subordinates and top-management, in the beginning. Press J to jump to the feed. During his stay, he discussed possible causes of the accident with Akimov and Dyatlov but they were mystified. Is there any truth or is it all here say? The one thing, though, that I did feel, walking through the power plant was a little bit of a better sense of how easy it would be to deny. A member of staff at the plant from 1982, he became a witness to the immediate aftermath on the morning of 26 April 1986. But no matter how strict he was, he was still a high-level professional.". August 25, 2022 askans. Everyone stay calm. 2023 BBC. Not really regarding to Akimov specifically, but in my book Im reading the wife of the firefighter who stayed by his side all the way described lots of horrific side affects from the radiation, and he wasnt even in the same situation as Akimov. The explosion occurred. [4] He died from the acute radiation poisoning on 14 May 1986 and was laid to rest at the Mitinskoe Cemetery in Moscow. 0000016820 00000 n Arriving at work that morning, Mr Breus says he did not see any fire. Unfortunately, the first five years after the accident, the details were kept secret, but now the scientists and activists have the access to archives. Toptunov had literally turned white.". [4] They were found by other workers and taken to the infirmary. Armen Abagian, who was the director of one of the Moscow nuclear power research institutes at the time, advised the Soviet government to evacuate Pripyat immediately. "Another friend treated at the same time said he had a date with his girlfriend close to the bridge that night. It is the same in the case of the Chernobyl disaster. The The judges of the show trial claim one year later: The engineers are at fault who started operation of the reactor in 1983, despite not all safety tests having been passed. There have been reports that the skin on his legs fell off like a sock when trying to stand. However, the operation was flawed, as the scale of the disaster was like nothing ever seen before. The locals thought they would later be returning to their homes, but this was never the case. It was just awful, and right in the middle of a city.. Within two weeks, both Mr Akimov and Mr Toptunov had died in a Moscow hospital of acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Sputnik/RIA Vasily Ignatenko was 25 years old when he died of radiation. At first, they also tried to reason with me, saying, Youre young. In the hours after the explosion, he spoke to Oleksandr Akimov, the shift leader at the No. ", I'd say it is indeed Akimov, and the man standing next to him might be Kovalenko, reactor#4 supervisor. "They were not looking good, to put it mildly," he says. 04:00 - Further fire fighting units arrive from Chernobyl, Polesskoe and Kiev. Now, volunteers, including veterinarians and radiation experts, have formed the nonprofit charity Dogs of Chernobyl. Within two weeks, both Mr Akimov and Mr Toptunov had died in a Moscow hospital of acute radiation syndrome (ARS). Mice embryos used for research have dissolved in the conditions, and horses left that lived within 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) of the power plant died due to their thyroid glands disintegrating. But no matter how strict he was, he was still a high-level professional.". Pilot Alexander Petrov, who responded to the scene, recalled, It took us more than 24 hours to get things going. 4 reactor, Oleksiy Ananenko (then and now) with a scene from the TV series showing the three workers wearing respirators, The TV series portrays how 400 miners were involved in digging the tunnel under the damaged reactor, The TV series shows Pripyat residents watching events unfold on what was later nicknamed the "Bridge of Death", The damage caused to the facility by the biggest nuclear disaster in history, Chernobyl mini-series review: 'It stops you sleeping', Chernobyl disaster: 'I didn't know the truth', Craig Mazin maintains that Dyatlov in particular was a "real bully", The people who moved to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, US-made cheese can be called 'gruyere' - court, AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Canadian grandma helps police snag phone scammer, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus. Nah Im good. Contrary to reports that the three divers died of radiation sickness as a result of their action, all three survived. Its no better now than it was 28 years ago. One of the most dramatic scenes in the miniseries shows three power plant workers volunteering to go into an underground tunnel beneath the damaged reactor to open a vital drainage valve. Lyudmillas story appears in Svetlana Alexievichs book, Voices From Chernobyl, where she says, None of the doctors knew I was staying the night with him in the compression chamber. BBC Ukrainian Hours after the world's worst nuclear accident, engineer Oleksiy Breus entered the control room of the No. Temperatures beneath the reactor were high and the series shows them stripping naked. 0000018917 00000 n Residents started to panic when there was a metallic smell in the air, and the atmosphere appeared different. There were fears that "lava" from the molten reactor could reach the water, triggering a further, potentially far more powerful explosion. Aleksandr Fyodorovich Akimov (Russian: ; 6 May 1953 11 May 1986) was a Soviet engineer who was the supervisor of the shift that worked at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Reactor Unit 4 on the night of the Chernobyl disaster, 26 April 1986. However, it is about respecting it for what it can do. Its a little like if you were in a skyscraper, and you said to yourself, This is solid! [] You just feel safe within it. Who would applaud that?". 0000015771 00000 n During the evening of April 25, engineers made several fatal mistakes, including disconnecting Reactor No. Firefighters were also asked to help clear radioactive debris from the roof after the fire was extinguished. Belarus shares a border with Ukraine, and the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is quite close to said border; in 2010, UNICEF reported that 20 percent of adolescents in Belarus suffer from chronic illnesses or disabilities caused by birth defects. But while many have complimented the show's attention to detail, he believes it is also one of the downsides of the TV series.

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