Der Chernobyl Flashback: May 1986
Der Spiegel is running a great series of articles leading up to next weeks' anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Go here for a reprint of an article published May 26, 1986, one month after the accident. The article discusses the confusion, fears and many possible consequences. The thing I find most interesting about the article is that it doesn't really give any less information about the consequences than we know today. The casualty count, radioactivity levels and the length of time that the affects may last are just as vague as they are now, 20 years later.
The article begins by explaining that currently (remember, currently is May 1986) there are some 400 workers digging a tunnel under Chernobyl that will end under reactor no. 4. It seems there’s quite a timeline of this tunnel-building available online if you do a little … um … digging. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to discuss the tunnel, one of the few things that actually helped.
The Der Spiegel article states that the underground tunnel was only one of two ways (the other being helicopter) by which the reactor could be approached at that point. This particular article does not mention the liquidators who had already been sacrificed in attempts to clean debris from the roof of reactor no. 4 and put out the fire. They tried many ways to put the fire out. One of these efforts involved pumping water into the core itself. The problem was, the piping in the reactor was destroyed so the water just seeped underneath the floor and began to heat up, acting as a furnace with the many substances dropped onto the reactor from helicopters in other attempts to put out the fire and cool down the core. At this point, if the floor were to give, a thermal reaction, possibly worse than the initial explosion, would take place. Two men were chosen to dive beneath the reactor and open the valves to release the water. These men successfully saved many lives, but lost their own before they ever reached the surface again.
So the new idea was to completely encase the reactor in concrete to avoid further irradiation of the air and groundwater while still allowing some sort of coolant to be applied to the reactor when necessary. The sarcophagus, now full of holes and crumbling to pieces, would take care of the above-ground encasement. It’s not possible that the groundwater was completely unaffected by this disaster, it would have been unthinkably worse if the concrete had not been poured underneath the reactor.
I’ll leave you with this blurb from the New York Times published June 2, 1986:
The article begins by explaining that currently (remember, currently is May 1986) there are some 400 workers digging a tunnel under Chernobyl that will end under reactor no. 4. It seems there’s quite a timeline of this tunnel-building available online if you do a little … um … digging. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to discuss the tunnel, one of the few things that actually helped.
The Der Spiegel article states that the underground tunnel was only one of two ways (the other being helicopter) by which the reactor could be approached at that point. This particular article does not mention the liquidators who had already been sacrificed in attempts to clean debris from the roof of reactor no. 4 and put out the fire. They tried many ways to put the fire out. One of these efforts involved pumping water into the core itself. The problem was, the piping in the reactor was destroyed so the water just seeped underneath the floor and began to heat up, acting as a furnace with the many substances dropped onto the reactor from helicopters in other attempts to put out the fire and cool down the core. At this point, if the floor were to give, a thermal reaction, possibly worse than the initial explosion, would take place. Two men were chosen to dive beneath the reactor and open the valves to release the water. These men successfully saved many lives, but lost their own before they ever reached the surface again.
So the new idea was to completely encase the reactor in concrete to avoid further irradiation of the air and groundwater while still allowing some sort of coolant to be applied to the reactor when necessary. The sarcophagus, now full of holes and crumbling to pieces, would take care of the above-ground encasement. It’s not possible that the groundwater was completely unaffected by this disaster, it would have been unthinkably worse if the concrete had not been poured underneath the reactor.
I’ll leave you with this blurb from the New York Times published June 2, 1986:
A Soviet Army team has blasted a tunnel through to the Chernobyl nuclear plant's No. 4 reactor, carefully setting explosive charges so as not to shake the ruined block and working quickly to avoid long exposure to radiation, a newspaper reported today.
The newspaper, the Defense Ministry daily Krasnaya Zvezda, said the reactor, which was destroyed by an explosion and fire on April 26, will be entombed in cement to seal off radiation.
The tunnel has been fitted with pipes through which the cement will be poured beneath and around the reactor, the paper said. Officials have said the reactor will remain entombed for centuries until the fuel element decays.
posted by Sara Ch. at 12:49 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home