The Chernobyl disaster is on everyone's lips and for good reason. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was indeed unprecedented in its scale and consequences. However, until very recently, practically no one knew that almost thirty years before the Chernobyl nightmare, the Kyshtym accident, comparable in its level and the largest in the world at that time, had already occurred in the USSR.
Kyshtym accident: chemical explosion with nuclear consequences
Fortunately, the world knows few nuclear disasters, but unfortunately, a large number of the most severe accidents at nuclear facilities occurred in our country when it was the Soviet Union. Among all these accidents, a special place is occupied by the explosion at the Mayak plant, which thundered on the evening of September 29, 1957. This explosion was chemical, but its consequences were hardly less than nuclear.
Facility: Bank No. 14 of the S-3 radioactive waste storage complex, Mayak production association, Ozersk (Chelyabinsk-40), Chelyabinsk region, Russia.
Victims: None.
Causes of the Kyshtym disaster
The main reason for the accident at PA Mayak is the failure of the cooling system of the storage tank for high-level nuclear waste. Due to overheating, an explosion occurred, which led to the release of a large amount (about 70 - 80 tons) of radioactive substances into the atmosphere.
However, the true causes of the disaster lie somewhat deeper - they are purely chemical. The failure of the cooling system was caused by the corrosion of its components (primarily control devices), and the explosion occurred as a result of a violent chemical reaction between the nitrate-acetate compounds of plutonium. The reaction of these compounds is explosive only at high temperatures and pressures.
Thus, a chemically aggressive environment (hot nuclear waste) caused premature corrosion of the components of the cooling system, which failed, and due to uncontrolled heating, plutonium compounds reacted. As a result - a powerful explosion and the title of one of the largest radiation man-made disasters.
Chronicle of events
The accident took place on the territory of the Mayak PA, in bank No. 14 of the C-3 radioactive waste storage complex. The complex was created specifically for storing high-level nuclear waste, primarily plutonium compounds in liquid form.
As you know, nuclear materials are very hot as a result of constant fission, and therefore they need to be cooled - this was the reason for the creation of the containers at Mayak. Each "can" was a stainless steel cylinder surrounded by more than a meter layer of concrete. The volume of the cylinder reached 300 cubic meters (that is, it could hold 300 tons of water), and was covered from above with a concrete cover weighing 160 tons. This whole structure was underground, and on top it was just a field overgrown with green grass.
The explosion occurred on Sunday, September 29, at 4:22 pm. As a result of the explosion, a cloud of high-level nuclear waste, literally erased into a fine powder, rose into the air, to a height of up to 2 km (at the time of the accident, there were about 80 cubic meters of waste in the bank). The explosion was so powerful that the 160-ton lid was thrown 25 meters away, and the bank itself was completely destroyed. Subsequently, it was found that the power of the explosion could reach 80 tons in TNT equivalent.
The cloud began to spread to the northeast, and by 3 o'clock in the morning it had completely dispersed, covering an area of \u200b\u200b23,000 square kilometers. Only at 4 o'clock in the morning were the first measurements of the radiation level at the enterprise carried out, which showed the seriousness of the accident.
Interestingly, in the evening, starting at about 23.00 and before settling, the cloud glowed with pink and light blue light (the effect was caused by the decay of plutonium and its highly active fission products) - this phenomenon looked like aurora borealis, and subsequently they wrote about it in newspapers.
On October 2, a specially created commission to study the causes of the accident began work, but only from October 6, on the seventh day after the accident, the evacuation of people from the area most affected by radioactive contamination began. Over the next few days, several thousand people were evacuated, and the affected villages were destroyed.
Later, in the contaminated area, measures were taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident, in which, mainly, the military were involved.
Consequences of the accident
A cloud of radioactive waste, ejected into the atmosphere by the explosion, covered an area of \u200b\u200babout 23,000 sq. Km. On this territory there were 217 settlements (including the city of Kamensk-Uralsky) with a total population of about 272,000 people. However, in fairness, it should be noted that almost 90% of waste fell on the territory of the Mayak PA.
After the accident (with a serious delay - about one to two weeks), about 10-12 thousand people were evacuated from the most contaminated areas. The villages that were emptied after the eviction of people (there were 23 of them) were practically wiped off the face of the earth - houses, all property of people, warehouses with food, etc. died under the tracks of bulldozers. Also, all the livestock was slaughtered and buried, the fields were plowed up and everything that people could take and use was destroyed. But why were such measures taken? The reason is simple: all this prevented the spread of radiation contamination (after all, people take and drag everything that lies badly, and if there is nothing, then there is nothing to drag), and also saved from danger people who could secretly return to their homes.
Already in 1959, a sanitary protection zone was created on the most polluted territory, which in 1968 was transformed into the East Ural State Reserve. On this territory, economic activities (cultivation of land, picking berries and mushrooms, hunting, raising livestock, etc.) were completely prohibited, and only scientists visited it.
The entire contaminated area was later called the East Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT). The EURT with an insignificant width stretches for about 300 - 350 km in the north-east direction from the explosion site. The shape of the track is due to the wind blowing at the time of the accident and during the next 10-11 hours.
The exact number of people who received high doses of radiation is still unknown, but a number of sources indicate that about 9-10 thousand people received dangerous doses, and 200 people died from radiation sickness.
Present time
On the territory of EURT, an increased radioactive background is still observed, which does not pose a danger to people. However, the territory of the East Ural State Nature Reserve is still closed to the public, as the radioactive contamination there is still quite high. Since the 1960s, only scientists have worked in the reserve (aptly named Atomic). The results of research in the Atomic Reserve are of great scientific and practical interest.
Despite the Kyshtym accident and a number of other incidents, the Mayak Production Association continues its work to this day.
Secrecy, secrecy and more secrecy
Almost all major man-made disasters in our country were shrouded in secrecy, and any materials on them were carefully hidden from the general public. The Mayak accident is no exception. It was because of the secrecy regime that the disaster was named Kyshtym.
The fact is that the "Mayak" itself, as well as the city of Ozersk (or Chelyabinsk-40) were classified and were not marked on the maps. The nearest unclassified settlement was the city of Kyshtym (which, being just a few kilometers from the enterprise, did not suffer at all - the wind was blowing in the opposite direction), and it was decided to use it for the "official" name of the disaster.
The accident was officially recognized only in 1989, and since then the Chelyabinsk region has been struggling with the negative background that surrounds it because of the Mayak, but so far not very successfully. Many years of secrecy and numerous radiation accidents have instilled mistrust and fear in people. And it is very difficult to fight against fear and mistrust.
Fortunately, the world knows few nuclear disasters, but unfortunately, a large number of the most severe accidents at nuclear facilities occurred in our country when it was the Soviet Union. Among all these accidents, an explosion at the Mayak plant, which thundered on the evening of September 29, 1957, occupies a special place. This explosion was chemical, but its consequences were hardly less than nuclear.
Kyshtym accident: chemical explosion with nuclear consequences
An object: Bank No. 14 of the S-3 radioactive waste storage complex, Mayak production association, Ozersk (Chelyabinsk-40), Chelyabinsk region, Russia.
Victims: absent.
Causes of the Kyshtym disaster
The main reason for the accident at PA Mayak is the failure of the cooling system of the storage tank for high-level nuclear waste. Due to overheating, an explosion occurred, which led to the release of a large amount (about 70 - 80 tons) of radioactive substances into the atmosphere.
However, the true causes of the disaster lie somewhat deeper - they are purely chemical. The failure of the cooling system was caused by the corrosion of its components (primarily control devices), and the explosion occurred as a result of a violent chemical reaction between the nitrate-acetate compounds of plutonium. The reaction of these compounds is explosive only at high temperatures and pressures.
Thus, a chemically aggressive environment (hot nuclear waste) caused premature corrosion of the components of the cooling system, which failed, and due to uncontrolled heating, plutonium compounds reacted. As a result - a powerful explosion and the title of one of the largest radiation man-made disasters.
Chronicle of events
The accident took place on the territory of the Mayak PA, in bank No. 14 of the C-3 radioactive waste storage complex. The complex was created specifically for storing high-level nuclear waste, primarily plutonium compounds in liquid form.
As you know, nuclear materials are very hot as a result of constant fission, and therefore they need to be cooled - this was the reason for the creation of the containers at Mayak. Each "can" was a stainless steel cylinder surrounded by more than a meter layer of concrete. The volume of the cylinder reached 300 cubic meters (that is, it could hold 300 tons of water), and was covered from above with a concrete cover weighing 160 tons. This whole structure was underground, and on top it was just a field overgrown with green grass.
The explosion occurred on Sunday, September 29, at 4:22 pm. As a result of the explosion, a cloud of high-level nuclear waste, literally erased into a fine powder, rose into the air, to a height of up to 2 km (at the time of the accident, there were about 80 cubic meters of waste in the bank). The explosion was so powerful that the 160-ton lid was thrown 25 meters away, and the bank itself was completely destroyed. Subsequently, it was found that the power of the explosion could reach 80 tons in TNT equivalent.
The cloud began to spread to the northeast, and by 3 o'clock in the morning it had completely dispersed, covering an area of \u200b\u200b23,000 square kilometers. Only at 4 o'clock in the morning were the first measurements of the radiation level at the enterprise carried out, which showed the seriousness of the accident.
Interestingly, in the evening, starting at about 23.00 and before settling, the cloud glowed with pink and light blue light (the effect was caused by the decay of plutonium and its highly active fission products) - this phenomenon looked like aurora borealis, and subsequently they wrote about it in newspapers.
On October 2, a specially created commission to study the causes of the accident began work, but only from October 6, on the seventh day after the accident, the evacuation of people from the area most affected by radioactive contamination began. Over the next few days, several thousand people were evacuated, and the affected villages were destroyed.
Later, in the contaminated area, measures were taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident, in which, mainly, the military were involved.
Consequences of the accident
A cloud of radioactive waste, ejected into the atmosphere by the explosion, covered an area of \u200b\u200babout 23,000 sq. Km. On this territory there were 217 settlements (including the city of Kamensk-Uralsky) with a total population of about 272,000 people. However, in fairness, it should be noted that almost 90% of waste fell on the territory of the Mayak PA.
After the accident (with a serious delay - about one to two weeks), about 10-12 thousand people were evacuated from the most contaminated areas. The villages that were emptied after the eviction of people (there were 23 of them) were practically wiped off the face of the earth - houses, all property of people, warehouses with food, etc. died under the tracks of bulldozers. Also, all the livestock was slaughtered and buried, the fields were plowed up and everything that people could take and use was destroyed. But why were such measures taken? The reason is simple: all this prevented the spread of radiation contamination (after all, people take and drag everything that lies badly, and if there is nothing, then there is nothing to drag), and also saved from danger people who could secretly return to their homes.
Already in 1959, a sanitary protection zone was created on the most polluted territory, which in 1968 was transformed into the East Ural State Reserve. On this territory, economic activities (cultivation of land, picking berries and mushrooms, hunting, raising livestock, etc.) were completely prohibited, and only scientists visited it.
The entire contaminated area was later called the East Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT). The EURT with an insignificant width stretches for about 300 - 350 km in the north-east direction from the explosion site. The shape of the track is due to the wind blowing at the time of the accident and during the next 10-11 hours.
The exact number of people who received high doses of radiation is still unknown, but a number of sources indicate that about 9-10 thousand people received dangerous doses, and 200 people died from radiation sickness.
Present time
On the territory of EURT, an increased radioactive background is still observed, which does not pose a danger to people. However, the territory of the East Ural State Nature Reserve is still closed to the public, as the radioactive contamination there is still quite high. Since the 1960s, only scientists have worked in the reserve (aptly named Atomic). The results of research in the Atomic Reserve are of great scientific and practical interest.
Despite the Kyshtym accident and a number of other incidents, the Mayak Production Association continues its work to this day.
Secrecy, secrecy and more secrecy
Almost all major man-made disasters in our country were enveloped in an aura of secrecy, and any materials on them were carefully hidden from the general public. The Mayak accident is no exception. It was because of the secrecy regime that the disaster was named Kyshtym.
The fact is that the "Mayak" itself, as well as the city of Ozersk (or Chelyabinsk-40) were classified and were not marked on the maps. The nearest unclassified settlement was the city of Kyshtym (which, being just a few kilometers from the enterprise, did not suffer at all - the wind was blowing in the opposite direction), and it was decided to use it for the "official" name of the disaster.
The accident was officially recognized only in 1989, and since then the Chelyabinsk region has been struggling with the negative background that surrounds it because of the Mayak, but so far not very successfully. Many years of secrecy and numerous radiation accidents have instilled mistrust and fear in people. And it is very difficult to fight against fear and mistrust.
In the fall of 1957, 29 years before the accident at the Chernobyl station, the first atomic disaster in the history of the USSR occurred in the secret Ural city of Chelyabinsk-40. As a result of the explosion of a container in the radioactive waste storage facility, a total activity of 20 million curies was released (for comparison, in Chernobyl - 50 million). The radioactive cloud covered an area of \u200b\u200b20 thousand square kilometers. Part of it remains a closed territory to this day.
About what led to the catastrophe, what forces it was liquidated, and who was responsible for everything - in the material of "RG".
"Bomb" at your side
The first atomic weapons in the Soviet Union were made in a terrible hurry: the Americans had already dropped their bombs on Japan, and the USSR, at the cost of incredible efforts, was catching up with its rivals. 700,000 scientists and a dozen factories across the country were working on an atomic project. The Ural Combine played a key role in the entire production cycle: the first industrial reactor was located here and weapons-grade plutonium was being produced.
However, by 1957, the "atomic fever" had already subsided: the USSR created a plutonium, uranium, and hydrogen bomb. According to eyewitnesses, at that time calm and confidence reigned at the plant in the "forty": the enterprise was working more and more steadily every year, the production of plutonium was successful, thanks to the creative search of scientists and engineers of the plant, the power of nuclear reactors was increased five times without additional costs ... It seemed to many at that time that the most difficult period of the beginning of the atomic era - the start-up and adjustment of nuclear production - was left behind, and then it will be easier and easier.
"It is characteristic that various technical incidents, malfunctions, sometimes not at all safe, occurred at the main production," writes V. Tolstikov in the book "Nuclear Catastrophe of 1957 in the Urals", "Hence, of course, they expected trouble. But in September 1957, the trouble came unexpectedly from the other side - from the storage of radioactive waste. It must be admitted that the management of the plant paid less attention to their storage and processing than to the main production. "
The waste storage complex was a concrete "coffin" buried in the ground with cells for 20 stainless steel containers, they were called "banks". They were cooled by water circulating between the walls of the container and the concrete. All tanks were equipped with a ventilation system, as well as all kinds of sensors - heat, liquid level, etc. True, checks later will show that these devices, borrowed from the chemical industry, failed almost immediately after the storage was built in 1953: not withstood the harsh conditions. As a result, nobody controlled the liquid level in the cooling system.
"Bank" No. 14 contained 256 cubic meters of liquid highly active solutions, it was filled with industrial waste from March to April 1957. On the morning of September 29, a few hours before the explosion, the storage technician on duty noticed that the C-3 complex was smoking. Puffs of yellow smoke were reported to the authorities, and soon four technicians, equipped with the latest anti-radiation technology: flashlights and gas masks, were sent to investigate the "cans". Due to the dense smoke in the technical corridor of the storage facility, they saw almost nothing. As a result, we checked the wiring by touch, turned on the ventilation and went upstairs. They all remembered the "terrible heat" in the vault.
According to the official version, the temperature in the "jar" left without cooling increased, the solution evaporated, leaving about 80 tons of a mixture of dry nitrate-acetate salts. Later, the Academy of Chemical Protection will establish that when heated, such a mixture explodes no worse than black powder.
It exploded at 4:22 pm. A concrete slab weighing 160 tons was demolished from the 14th "can" and thrown 25 meters away, the lids from two adjacent containers were ripped off. In buildings located 200 meters from the point of the explosion, glass was knocked out, walls were partially destroyed, and iron gates were twisted. The explosion power was 50 tons of TNT. However, no one was hurt. The Soviet atom began removing witnesses to the accident later.
East Ural radioactive trace.
Deadly glow
On Sunday, September 29, 1957, Sorokovka (the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40, later Chelyabinsk-65, now Ozersk) was warm and sunny, and a football match between teams of two secret factories was taking place at the stadium. A steady southwest wind was blowing. This circumstance will be of no small importance afterwards. Spectators in the stands would not have paid attention to the booming sound from the side of the plant, if after a few seconds a column of dust and smoke, shaped like a torch, had not appeared from there. In the later twilight, the smoke began to glow ... A few days later the Izvestia newspaper published a note about an unusual natural phenomenon in the Middle Urals, similar to the polar lights.
This "radiance", and in fact - a cloud of radioactive dust, driven by the same southwestern wind, at the speed of an asphalt roller - 30 kilometers per hour - moved through the industrial site, a radiochemical plant under construction, a fire department, a military town and a prison camp to the side the city of Kamensk-Uralsky. The territory that it covered then was named VURS (East Ural Radioactive Trace). It covers an area of \u200b\u200b200 thousand square kilometers, and on the map it looks like a glass of jelly had been dropped on paper: a drop-shaped spot tapering towards the northeast. The "spot" is 105 kilometers long and 8-10 kilometers wide. There were 23 settlements on this territory.
In the first hours after the accident, people who found themselves near the epicenter witnessed another strange phenomenon: it snowed, whitish flakes fell from the sky and covered the ground, roofs without melting, stuck to the walls, settled on their faces ... The radioactive snowfall continued for a whole day ... In the dark, dosimetrists of the chemical plant arrived, announced an urgent evacuation of part of the personnel and soldiers-builders who worked on the construction of industrial facilities.
After the evacuation, they carried out sanitization, all were dressed in clean clothes, eyewitnesses recall. But how to do this correctly, they did not really explain. Trying to wash off the "invisible dirt" from the body, people rubbed themselves with washcloths in hot-heated baths, driving radioactive dust deep under their skin ... People who ate or smoked in the contaminated zone risked even more risks. According to official data, more than a thousand servicemen were injured as a result of the accident, of which 63 soldiers received radiation from 10 to 50 roentgens.
Feat according to plan
Meanwhile, on the morning of September 30, the plant personnel took up their usual duties: production was not to be stopped for a second. The second most important task was to prevent overheating of waste in the rest of the walled up "banks". I had to drill 15-meter holes in concrete to supply hoses with water - for cooling. At the same time, the cleaning of the territory began, where the radiation power from the "radiation" debris ranged from 19 thousand to several hundred microroentgens per second. Moreover, there was no experience of such work either at the plant or in the entire USSR.
“Here we came across what was to happen. The worker-soldiers do not go to the cleaning site. They stand and are silent, they do not carry out the command, especially since their commanders do not try to command, as it should be, they are afraid themselves. Seeing this situation , Lyzlov and I (an engineer-dosimetrist) passing by a group of soldiers, casually said: "Come on, guys", went to a dangerous area, stopped, lit a cigarette and began to talk calmly, not paying attention to the workers. It helped, they began to approach us , set to work. It’s difficult for the first time to overcome fear, and then it becomes easier ... We began to clean the road from dirt and debris, the walls of buildings were washed, plaster was knocked down. The garbage and the top layer of earth were taken to a burial pit "- writes in his book "Plutonium for the atomic bomb" Mikhail Gladyshev, the former director of the plutonium plant under the "forty", who personally had to take part in eliminating the consequences of the explosion.
On the same day it turned out that the consequences of the accident for the nearby settlements are very serious. However, the evacuation of the villages began only after 7-14 days. During this time, residents received an average dose of about 50 rem.
"The evacuators did not stop at anything," recalls an eyewitness to the events, chairman of the Kyshtym-57 society Boris Bessonov. "They came to Bashkir villages in trucks, asked people how much they valued their houses. The above sums were given in cash. People were taken away immediately, throwing things, the cattle were shot. People silently obeyed. "
First of all, 1,100 people were resettled from the villages of Berdianish, Saltykovo, Galikaevo. Over the next year and a half, almost 10,000 more people were evicted. Popular rumor tells about thousands of dead, about two-headed calves born for many years in a row, but this is not confirmed by official data.
Until the end of 1957, the Commission of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building investigated the causes of the accident. The plant's personnel were found guilty for not ensuring proper operation of the waste storage facility. But in fact, only the director of the enterprise, Mikhail Demyanovich, was punished. He was relieved of his duties as director "for the relaxation of production discipline" and was sent to Siberia as chief engineer at an enterprise of the same profile.
Today, more than 82 percent of the land in the territory of VURS has been returned to economic use - a total of 87 thousand hectares. The rest of the territory, located at the head of the "drop" (16.6 thousand hectares), is set aside for the East Ural Reserve, which makes it possible to study the effect of radioactive radiation on plants, animals and soil. Studies show that nature, albeit slowly, but heals: in 50 years the amount of nuclide "dirt" in the ground has decreased by half, and in plants - by 8 times. However, these territories will become completely safe no earlier than in a hundred years.
Chemical plant "Mayak" (Combine No. 817), located in the city of Ozersk (Chelyabinsk region, Russian Federation), or Chelyabinsk-40 (1948-1966), or Chelyabinsk-65 (1966-1994), or Sorokovka ( as the city was called by its inhabitants), became widely known in the USSR only in 1989. Before that, only a few knew about him. Especially about what happened at this plant on September 29, 1957: one of the biggest nuclear disasters in the history of mankind. And if every schoolchild and resident of the country knows about the events at the fourth power unit at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, only a few know about the September events of 1957 at a secret chemical plant in the Ural Mountains.
To be honest, industry is not at all my theme. But since the most terrible nuclear disaster occurred at a power facility, the topic of such accidents is also interesting for power engineers.
There are many resources on the Internet where this disaster is described in detail, including on Wikipedia and Luxorie. So I do not pretend to be unique in the material, but I will simply state some facts about the terrible "Kyshtym tragedy" or the so-called "Ural Chernobyl". In fact, the most frequently mentioned name of the accident came from the name of the settlement of Kyshtym, which is located several tens of kilometers from the site of the tragedy, and was at the time of the accident the closest city DESIGNATED on the maps. The chemical plant itself and its satellite city Ozersk (Chelyabinsk-40) were secret and were not indicated on the maps of the USSR. This, in principle, happened all the time in the Soviet Union. For example, the name of the cosmodrome "Baikonur": the settlement with the same name was located at a considerable distance from it, and there were cities and villages much closer to the cosmodrome itself. But the influence of the Cold War, the eternal attempts to confuse and hide information from opponents and American spies, did their job.
Combine "Mayak"
When the US military used atomic bombs in Japan on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the USSR realized how decisive the impact on other countries through nuclear weapons could be. It was decided to start research in this direction with the aim of creating "their" unique bomb. And within a few years, the nuclear program became number 1 in the country.
After the end of World War II, in the USSR, in the Ural mountains, at a distance of about 100 kilometers from Chelyabinsk, they began to build a chemical production. The plant was named "Mayak". The combine and its satellite town were erected using the usual Soviet means and methods practiced in those years. In particular, the "voluntary" labor of the Komsomol "biorobots" was used, the recruitment of qualified engineers throughout the country who could not voluntarily refuse from the "business trip" to Kyshtym, increased secrecy and, which is unimaginable for foreigners, the labor of prisoners of forced labor camps for TOTALLY SECRET facility. The scientific leader of the project was Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, later known as the "father" of the Soviet nuclear bomb.
In the course of work on the manufacture of atomic weapons, they did not care about the environment or the health of people. To manufacture a charge for a bomb, this chemical plant was launched, where not only uranium and plutonium were obtained, but also a huge amount of liquid and solid nuclear waste arising from the separation of nuclear elements. These wastes contained a huge amount of radioactive residues of cesium, uranium, strontium, plutonium and other elements.
Initially, the entire production cycle was single-circuit, i.e. After the production cycle, all waste and coolants were discharged directly into the environment: into the Techa River near the plant. Soon, people began to get sick and die in the villages and villages on the banks of the river, and then a “decision” was made to pour only low-level waste into the river.
Note that the Techa River is a tributary of the Ob, which flows into the Arctic Ocean. And the consequences of the discharge of radioactive waste from the "Mayak" were found in the ocean.
Medium-level waste was discharged into the drainless lake Karachay, and high-level waste was disposed of in special stainless steel tanks located in special concrete storage facilities. Due to the activity of radioactive materials, the contents of these containers were constantly warming up, therefore, in order to prevent an explosion and cooling the contents, it was necessary to take measures to cool and control the state of these industrial radioactive waste.
Leaks of “precious” radioactive material also occurred at the production site. To collect them, the Komsomol "biorobots" with buckets and sponges, as well as prisoners were used. There was also little concern about the health of permanent workers, as the effects of radiation were not yet fully understood in those years, especially its effects in the long term. They feared only an instant threat. According to eyewitnesses, one of the indicators for "sending" to short-term sick leave served as persistent nosebleeds or hair loss.
The technologies associated with nuclear elements were also imperfect in the late 1950s. So, in the production process, ordinary felt glands in the valves were used, which constantly leaked and corroded from radioactive substances. Regular glass was used for control lenses, which burst on contact with active substances. Correspondingly, pipes leaked, glasses burst, wiring sparked, dust and radioactive substances were constantly carried around the plant. But the production had to work around the clock, so "someone" had to constantly repair all this, restore, alter, modify, clean up. As a result, many thousands of workers died from radiation sickness, some from cancer ...
1957 crash
On September 27, 1957, at 16:22, a 300 cubic meter tank exploded, which contained about 80 cubic meters of highly radioactive waste. According to one of the official versions, the cause of the explosion is the failure of the cooling system and, as a result, the heating and subsequent detonation of the container. According to another version, a solution containing plutonium got into the waste by mistake, and when it interacted with the waste, a large amount of energy was released and led to an explosion.
From the materials of the investigation, the official cause of the accident is as follows: “Disruption of the cooling system due to corrosion and failure of control devices in one of the containers of the radioactive waste storage, with a volume of 300 cubic meters, caused self-heating of 70-80 tons of high-level waste stored there, mainly in the form of nitrate-acetate connections. Evaporation of water, drainage of the residue and heating it to a temperature of 330 - 350 degrees led to the explosion of the contents of the container on September 29, 1957 at 16:00 local time. The power of the explosion, similar to the explosion of a gunpowder charge, is estimated at 70 - 100 tons of trinitrotoluene. "
An independent investigation of the accident has not yet been carried out, and some scientists believe that it was a nuclear explosion that occurred at the plant as a result of a spontaneous reaction (version with plutonium). So far, no technical and chemical investigation reports on this accident have been published.
The explosion power is estimated at 70-100 tons in TNT equivalent (the bomb dropped on Nagasaki had a capacity of up to 18,000 tons). The directly exploded waste container was located in a special ditch more than 8 meters deep, where there were a total of 20 such containers. The tank was destroyed, and the concrete slab 1 meter thick and weighing about 160 tons, which was located above this ditch, was thrown to the side by 25 meters. About 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the environment (during the explosion at Chernobyl - about 380 million curies, during the explosion at Fukushima-1 - 5-10 million curies). About 2 million curies of emissions formed a cloud in the atmosphere at an altitude of 1-2 km from the surface, from which radioactive fallout fell during the next 10-11 hours over a distance of 300-350 km in the northeast direction.
To eliminate the consequences of the accident, in fact, in order to wash off the radioactive substances with water, the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people were required at the industrial sites of the Mayak chemical plant. From nearby cities, including Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk, young men and women were mobilized to eliminate the consequences of the accident, no one warned them about where they were going and about the danger of radiation. They also brought in whole units of the military, parties of prisoners. Everyone was strictly forbidden to say where they were, what they were doing. Children from villages aged 7-13 were sent to bury the radioactive crop. To eliminate the consequences, the labor of pregnant women was also used. As a result, in the Chelyabinsk region and directly in the city of Ozersk itself, the mortality rate increased significantly after the accident, people died right at work, children with genetic abnormalities were born, whole families died out ...
The area of \u200b\u200bdirect pollution affected at least 217 settlements with a population of at least 272,000 people in the Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen regions. The city of Ozersk itself was not affected, but about 90% of the waste fell directly on the territory of the chemical plant. Further, this waste on shoes, clothes and wheels of the liquidators' cars was actively "brought" into the city.
During the liquidation of the consequences of the accident, 27 villages with a population of 10 to 12 thousand people were resettled. Buildings, property, livestock and crops were destroyed. By the decision of the USSR government, to prevent the spread of pollution in 1959, a special sanitary-protected zone was created in this area, where all economic activities were prohibited. However, according to information from some sources, some of the villages and households at an equidistant distance did not remainedin this area for special studies of the effect of radiation on people and animals. Since 1968, the East Ural State Reserve has been formed on this territory, which is now referred to as the East Ural Radioactive Trail (EURT).
The area of \u200b\u200bthis reserve was originally about 27,000 square meters, however, due to the constant "spreading" of radiation by the wind, the area of \u200b\u200bthis EURT, albeit insignificantly, is still increasing.
Directly mutants and various "freaks", as well as on the territory near Chernobyl, are absent. A lot of wild, unafraid animals, including roe deer and deer, run around this area. On the territory of EURT, there are practically no conifers, which are especially typical for these latitudes of pine. This is due to the fact that radiation for the most part accumulates in plants in the leaves and needles, and if deciduous trees shed their leaves every year, then conifers cannot do this. As a result, the needles turn yellow and the tree dies.
Conclusion
Information about the disaster was hidden from the population of the country. Even special measures were taken to misinform the population: they talked about the glare of the special aurora borealis. Distorted facts about the accident were constantly described in the Western press and other sources, since until now nobody really knew about the real facts about this disaster. The general public became aware of it only at the very end of the 1980s.
In many ways, it was only after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that the government of the USSR realized that it was possible to "tell" about the accident at the Mayak plant. As a result of the accident, there were victims, and resettled, and heroic liquidators of the consequences of the disaster. The latter, prior to the declassification of the details of the accident, had no rights and benefits at all. Nobody, I think, will know until the end how many people died as a result of this accident, especially since almost 55 years have passed since this terrible event. It is not known how many of the tens of thousands of liquidators of the accident died in the following years. The consequences of environmental pollution will continue to haunt both residents of nearby areas and the descendants of resettled residents for a long time.
Combine "Mayak", already as the Production Association "Mayak", is still functioning. The association is one of the largest Russian centers for the processing of radioactive metals. PA Mayak serves the Beloyarsk, Kola and Novovoronezh nuclear power plants, and processes nuclear fuel from nuclear submarines and icebreakers.
Radioactive waste continues to be poured into Lake Karachay, the water heats up, evaporates, dust with harmful substances is carried by the wind across the Chelyabinsk region ...
P.S. All photos are taken from open sources and are presented as illustrative material.
On September 29, 1957, at 4 pm, the first radiation accident in the USSR occurred on the territory of the Mayak chemical plant, located in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozersk) - a container for storing radioactive waste exploded. The catastrophe was named the Kyshtym accident - after the name of the city of Kyshtym, the nearest to Chelyabinsk-40.
The explosion took place in a tank with a volume of 300 m³ due to the failure of the cooling system. The tank contained a total of about 80 m³ of highly radioactive nuclear waste. At the time of construction in the 1950s, the strength of the structure was beyond doubt. She was in a pit, in a concrete jacket a meter thick.
The lid of the container weighed 560 tons, and a two-meter layer of earth was laid on top of it. However, even this could not contain the explosion.
According to another, unofficial version, the catastrophe occurred due to an error of the plant employees, who mistakenly added plutonium oxalate solution to the evaporator tank with a hot solution of plutonium nitrate. Oxalate oxidation with nitrate released a large amount of energy, which led to overheating and explosion of the container.
During the explosion, about 20 million Ci of radioactive substances got into the atmosphere, some of which rose to a height of up to two kilometers and formed an aerosol cloud.
Over the next 11-12 hours, radioactive fallout fell on an area 300-350 km long northeast of the explosion site.
The radiation contamination zone includes 23 thousand km² with a population of 270 thousand people in 217 settlements of the Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions. During the liquidation of the consequences of the accident, it turned out to be necessary to resettle 23 villages with a population of 10-12 thousand people, all buildings, property and livestock were destroyed.
Hundreds of thousands of servicemen and civilians became liquidators.
In the first ten days alone, the number of deaths from radiation went to hundreds; in total, 250 thousand liquidators suffered to some extent during the work.
On the international scale of nuclear tests, the accident was rated at six points. For comparison, the seventh level, the maximum, was assigned to the accidents at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant.
In order to avoid the spread of radiation, by the decision of the government, a sanitary protection zone was formed, in which economic activity was prohibited. In 1968, the East Ural State Reserve was established on this territory.
Its visit is prohibited - the level of radioactivity is still too dangerous for humans.
The reserve plays an important role in conducting scientific research on radiation.
Wikimedia Commons
At the site of the explosion, a column of smoke and dust formed about a kilometer high, flickering with an orange-red light.
On October 6, 1957, a note dedicated to him appeared, in which, however, not a word was said about the accident:
“Last Sunday evening… many Chelyabinsk residents observed a special glow of the starry sky. This glow, quite rare in our latitudes, had all the signs of aurora borealis. Intense red, sometimes turning into a slightly pink and light blue glow, at first covered a significant part of the southwestern and northeastern surface of the sky. At about 11 o'clock it could be observed in the north-west direction ... Against the background of the sky appeared relatively large colored areas and at times calm stripes, which had a meridional direction at the last stage of the aurora. The study of the nature of auroras, begun by Lomonosov, continues to this day. Modern science has confirmed the main idea of \u200b\u200bLomonosov that the aurora appears in the upper atmosphere as a result of electrical discharges ... Aurora ... can be observed in the future at the latitudes of the Southern Urals. "
The Kyshtym accident has long been a state secret. For the first time, it was said openly about her in the films of the director and biologist Elena, filmed at the turn of the 1980s-1990s, dedicated to the fate of the Soviet biologist and geneticist Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky.
The films were only shown on television after Sakanyan directly approached.
But the information was leaked to the foreign press in April 1958. For the first time, one of the Copenhagen newspapers reported about the accident. Subsequently, the data on the accident appeared in the report of the US National Laboratory, biologist Zhores Medvedev dedicated a book to the incident entitled "Nuclear Catastrophe in the Urals", having published it in the USA, and a group of American scientists from the Oak Ridge Nuclear Center conducted an analysis of the accident and its causes.
“For a long time the public knew practically nothing about the explosion at Mayak. Later, it is not clear why, the accident was replicated in the media as "Kyshtym accident".
In Kyshtym, an obelisk was even recently erected on this occasion, although this city has nothing to do with this event.
And the East Ural radioactive trail, which formed after 1957, did not touch Kyshtym and its inhabitants, ”said one of its liquidators in an interview in 2009.
In total, more than 30 incidents were recorded at Mayak, accompanied by radioactive releases and human casualties.
