Every year, the anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant disaster reminds the world of one of the worst nuclear accidents in human history. This tragedy not only left a mark in the hearts of millions, but also forever changed approaches to nuclear energy and safety. However, some aspects of the tragedy remain little known, although they play an important role in understanding the overall situation.
That is why Apostrophe will tell you little-known facts about the Chornobyl tragedy.
Violations during construction: the possibility of a disaster was warned for 8 years
KGB documents show warnings about the danger at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant eight years before the disaster. In December 1978, the Head of the KGB District Department, Klochko, reported in his memo "On Violations during the Construction of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant" on serious violations of technological standards. He noted that the project managers, ignoring future safety, focused on the speed of commissioning, which could lead to "tragic consequences."
It was noted that the poor quality of work and lack of proper control could lead to the destruction of structures and radioactive contamination in the future, which could lead to emergencies. In particular, here is a photo of the first page of the seven pages of Captain Klochko's report.
The first serious accident is the first step to tragedy
The warnings were ignored, and on September 14, 1982, the first serious accident occurred at the first unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, during which radioactive substances exceeding the norm by 100 times were released.
The contaminated area with a radius of 250 meters was cleaned up by covering it with water, soil, and leaves, and the KGB focused on preventing the spread of panic rumors. This is how the construction of the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant looked like in 1982.
In 1983, the KGB's Sixth Directorate had already warned the top leadership that Chornobyl, along with the Leningrad and Kursk NPPs, posed the greatest threat in the USSR. It was predicted that the accident could have caused radioactive contamination 60 times greater than the emissions from the nuclear explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1984, there were also reports of potential accidents at units III and IV, where the destruction of the supporting constructions was detected. Eventually, on April 26, 1986, a major accident occurred at Unit IV.
The strategy of silence
In Soviet times, information about the Chornobyl accident was strictly controlled and often falsified. On July 8, 1986, the KGB Sixth Chief Directorate drew up a 26-point list of information about the disaster that should be classified - a list intended to hide the true causes and extent of the accident.
Soviet intelligence services actively obstructed Western journalists' attempts to obtain reliable information. The KGB organized meetings between journalists and their agents, who provided them with distorted information. The incident with the American journalist Stephen Strasser of NewsWeek in June 1986 is worth mentioning here. The KGB engaged a large number of people to block his ability to "collect defamatory information." The journalist later recalled that in Kyiv, KGB agents literally surrounded him.
"It seems to me that we were outnumbered...I believe that KGB officers recorded our every contact, every person. But they couldn't have been around us: sellers in stores, drivers in cars..." Strasser said in 2016.
In particular, here is a photo of the KGB's certificate of surveillance of Stephen Strasser. These actions reflect the efforts of the Soviet authorities to hide and manipulate information about one of the largest nuclear disasters in history.
Statistics of the tragedy
According to official data, 3 million 259 thousand 761 people in Ukraine suffered from the Chornobyl disaster. As of January 1, 2021, the number of victims has decreased to 1 million 718 thousand 113 people, including 322,876 children and 181,149 accident liquidators.
The long-term effects of radiation exposure have caused significant health problems, including an increased risk of developing cancer. According to the National Medical Academy of Sciences, the incidence of thyroid cancer among liquidators has increased 4.4 times compared to the national level, among evacuees - 4 times, and among residents of the contaminated area - 1.3 times.
A little-known fact: why teeth were taken from liquidators
The collection of teeth from the liquidators of the Chornobyl disaster began due to the lack of information about the levels of radiation they faced. Since only about half of the liquidators had records of their radiation doses, and the credibility of this data was often low, a more reliable method of measurement had to be found. It was tooth enamel that turned out to be an important and proven indicator that allows us to determine the radiation dose even decades after exposure.
Thus, the teeth of liquidators collected during dental visits were used for scientific analyzes. As part of the program, 10,521 teeth were collected from 5,875 liquidators between 1998 and 2011.