1986: A LOOK BACK: Chornobyl nuclear accident (12/28/86)

1986: A LOOK BACK

Chornobyl nuclear accident

What was by far the biggest news of 1986 was the tragic nuclear disaster at the Chornobyl power station in Ukraine in late April, which sent shock waves throughout the entire world.

At 1 a.m. on April 25, the staff at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant started to reduce power on the No. 4 reactor as part of a reportedly routine maintenance procedure, which later was revealed by Soviet authorities to have been part of a series of reportedly unauthorized experiments by plant personnel on the reactor's turbine-generators.

By all accounts, the mood at the sprawling complex was relaxed. Spring had already come to Ukraine, and the nearby town of Prypiat, where the plant workers lived in uniform rows of high-rise apartment blocks, was reportedly getting ready for the traditional May 1 holiday, which this year coincided with the Orthodox Easter.

About 24 hours later, an explosion blew the roof off Chornobyl's No. 4 reactor, heaving a 1,000-ton concrete slab that covered the core into the reactor well. In less than three seconds, a second explosion took place, which ignited a rash of fires and shot a gigantic burst of radioactive gases a half-mile into the sky that drifted north across the Soviet Union and Europe. Shifting winds and continuing radiation emissions from the plant eventually spread over the rest of the Soviet Union and as far away as the western United States.

Eight months ago, what has been labelled the world's worst nuclear power accident struck at Chornobyl, contaminating hundreds of square miles in Ukraine, Byelorussia and even parts of northern Poland and Scandinavia, discharging radioactivity across the continent and inflicting medical and environmental damage that may continue for generations.

From the start, the Soviet authorities confronted an unprecedented crisis: handling a major fire inside one nuclear reactor while enormous amounts of radiation were escaping into the atmosphere, with a second reactor standing only yards away and two more nearby.

The disaster at Chornobyl not only revealed an epic human drama of striving to cope with invisible nuclear hazards, but also disclosed much about the nature of the relationship between the Soviet government and the population.

The Soviet government reportedly knew enough about the disaster within 12 hours to treat it as a major crisis and set up a high-level government commission to ascertain the damage and direct recovery operations. But Moscow did not acknowledge to its own citizens and the world that the accident had occurred for another 48 hours and remained silent about the full extent of the disaster for nearly two weeks. For part of the time, Soviet scientists were uncertain that the measures they were taking to bring the reactor under control would actually work.

In the aftermath of Chornobyl, Moscow has sought to rebuild its credibility by reporting more fully on the disaster at a special conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the Chornobyl accident in Vienna in August, where the Soviets submitted a 382-page detailed report on the causes, cleanup efforts, medical, environmental and energy effects of the disaster.

In this report, the Soviets laid the blame for the accident essentially on human error - safety violations by workers conducting an unauthorized experiment - but later admitted that part of blame was also due to design flaws in the reactor, which was essentially built for commercial use.

But it was the human toll that caused the most concern. The Soviets have stuck to their official report of 31 dead, with two reportedly dying in the explosion and the rest passing away in a Moscow hospital after efforts to treat them for heavy radiation exposure and burns.

The Weekly had heard reports from sources in Ukraine of thousands, maybe up to 15,000, dead at the time of the disaster, and there has remained scepticism among Ukrainians in the West about the official death toll of 31, because of the Soviet track record of covering up disasters and their consequences. Dr. Robert Gale, a bone-marrow specialist from UCLA, entered into the picture soon after the accident when the Soviets requested his, and only his, aid in treating the Chornobyl victims that were shipped off to Moscow.

More than half of these official dead, who were buried in a cemetery just outside of Moscow and hundreds of miles away from their homes and family in Ukraine, were firemen who braved the flames and radiation after the explosions. Official reports also said that six months after the accident 30 remained hospitalized and that a total of 300 persons were exposed to radiation levels far above those considered to be safe and many thousands may have been exposed to doses whose long-term effects are uncertain.

The Soviets have been subject to much criticism for their handling of the Chornobyl aftermath. They reportedly began evacuating the 49,000 residents of nearby Prypiat 36 hours after the accident, a period in which the people were probably exposed to high doses of radiation. Confusion and panic spread among the evacuees and many families became separated, some for weeks. The authorities set up an artificial 18-mile evacuation zone around the stricken plant and all the evacuees were reportedly given medical checks and iodine pills.

By the end of the summer, the official figure of the number of people evacuated from Ukraine and neighboring Byelorussia was 135,000, including some from outside the 18-mile danger zone, in so-called "hot spots" of radiation. In other areas only children were moved out temporarily - 64,000 from Byelorussia and 250,000 from Kiev, 70 miles south. Most of these children were sent to Pioneer summer camps throughout the Soviet Union, while some moved in with relatives who lived far from the accident area. All of the children returned in September to start the new school year, including some of the children of Prypiat who were accepted into schools in Kiev.

The evacuees, who were kept in temporary housing until some were allowed to settle into new communities built for them such as Zeleny Mys in the Kiev region, were reportedly compensated financially by the Soviets, who also opened up a special Chornobyl aid fund for donations from Soviet citizens for the victims and evacuees.

Probably the most serious consequence is the effect on the health of the population. Some Western physicians, including Dr. Gale, predicted that, based on the Soviet report in Vienna, up to 40,000 excess deaths, that is outside the normal death rate, would occur as a result of the accident. The Soviets themselves said they expected some 6,500 excess deaths over 70 years resulting from direct radiation exposure, in addition to some 30,000 to 40,000 additional deaths from indirect exposure to radioactive contamination of the food supply and such.

The Ukrainian community in the West, particularly in the United States and Canada, was quick to respond to news of the tragic disaster that struck the land of their ancestors and most immediately offered assistance, medical and monetary, to the victims, but their offers were categorically refused by the Soviets, who continued to label it an internal matter and insisted they could manage on their own. In response to this, as well as the frustration felt by many who were unable to contact relatives in Kiev and other parts of Ukraine, as well as the lack of detailed information, Ukrainians angrily took to the streets in organized protest and demonstrations in front of the United Nations and the Soviet Mission in New York, in Chicago, Washington, Ottawa, Philadelphia and other cities.

Ukrainian groups held news conferences and prayer vigils to attract news media to publicize the Soviet mishandling of the disaster and pray for the victims and their families. Ukrainians in Washington held a protest in front of the offices of U.S. News and World Report magazine for its callously inaccurate May 12 cover headline, "Nightmare in Russia," which the journal later retracted after meeting with local community representatives.

The Soviets have restarted reactors No. 1 and 2 after having entombed the damaged reactor No. 4 in concrete. The clean-up work at the plant has also aroused much hostility, with reports of executions of conscripts, mostly Estonians, refusing to do the dangerous work. Several thousand Estonians were apparently singled out for conscription for Chornobyl clean-up work and extension of their duty from the usual two months to six months, which has caused discontent to grow among the workers, as well as Estonians in general.

A book on the causes and effects of the Chornobyl disaster by Dr. David Marples, a research associate at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, titled, "Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR," was published by St. Martin's Press in New York this fall and was launched at a reception at the Ukrainian Institute of America on December 9. Dr. Marples is currently on a tour of several U.S. cities to publicize his book.

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