The Chernobyl tragedy: 00:27 a.m.
The Chernobyl tragedy: 00:27 a.m.

On the clock 00:27 a.m. By this time, the capacity had been reduced to the level stipulated by the test program at 700 MW, but then, for some reason, it began to plummet.

00:29 a.m. The conflict at the control panel flares up. “Power drops very quickly, we dropped much lower than the required safety level,” the senior operator and shift supervisor said to Dyatlov. But he continues to insist on conducting the test and requires any means to increase power.

The experiment is in full swing. It was carried out at the request of the Ministry of Atomic Energy in total secrecy. During the Cold War, there was a risk of an attack on the Soviet Union.

In the recent past, Israeli aircraft defeated a nuclear installation in Iraq that was built by specialists from the USSR. The country’s leadership began to demand that Soviet scientists test the reactor to assess the possible consequences of a surprise attack, including to find out the backup capabilities of nuclear equipment provided that the power was turned off.

Is the staff responsible for everything?

Today it is generally accepted that the cause of the Chernobyl accident lies in the test program. Over the years, many experts will come to an unanimous opinion that the accident was impossible to avoid. If the test program is carried out as accurately as possible, the reactor still boils, the water circulation through the technological channels ceases, the reactor melts, the steam enters the inter-reactor space, and from the vapor pressure, as from a teapot, the reactor roof is ejected into the air along with nuclear fuel.

The developers of the reactor were aware of its shortcomings and they could foresee the catastrophic consequences of the planned tests with an accuracy of seconds. But that was not done. Moreover, hastily accusing the station’s technical personnel of the accident, the question of the real causes of the explosion was postponed for many years.

Even today, it is difficult to obtain classified archival documents, eyewitness accounts, which would probably open the eyes of the world to the chain of logical consequences that led to the explosion of the 4th Chernobyl nuclear power unit.

Why was nearly 900 thousand people brought from all over the former Soviet Union to Chernobyl? Really it was impossible to foresee that not everyone would be involved in liquidation. Many had nowhere to resettle and, having received a large dose of radiation, people simply returned home. It is also disappointing that measures to eliminate the consequences of the disaster have not been subjected to a total analysis yet.

Indeed, as it turned out, many of them were erroneous and led to an increase in the scale of the disaster. Probably, it will be another years until all the circumstances of the terrible atomic catastrophe of the twentieth century become transparent and we, in the end, will understand the cause of the fatal error that cost humanity such terrible trials.