[1] Around 910 May, Gorbachev requested a chronology of events and the cause of the accident in preparation for an interview, which Legasov provided in writing with a few edits from other investigators. This situation was not normal for a science centre. There is no excess. Because his laboratory was a kind of cell that posed questions and formulated them physically; while the answers to these questions were given by specialists, not only from the various departments of the Institute but also from different institutes. There was a mulberry-coloured or even crimson glow visible above the station, which is opposite of what is usual for a nuclear power station. This had to be changed on the go. It would melt there, absorb the heat and also act as a protective shield to some extent. The entire group of the first Government commission departed, but Scherbina asked me and comrade Sidorenko to stay back for a while to finish the work. The Government Commission's meeting was led very vigorously, in his usual manner, by Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina. This measure turned out to be pointless because when I had proposed it, the extent of the destruction of the reactor was not yet known and neither was known the natural air circulation, its natural flow. On the evening of 26 April, the radiation levels were within permissable limits. the building of the city party committee, located in the central square of the city. Chernobyl illustrates what those tapes presumably contain, which at times is far different from the official Soviet account. Not for the record but for understanding. Say, a duty officer starts their shift. All this is what I say [will happen] unless the necessary measures are taken. Operators are trying to cool it, however, it was, already known that one or two people had already passed away. There was a construction base on the territory where machinery and materials needed for the construction of the 5th and 6th blocks were stored. He organized a team in one of the industrial areas of Pripyat that would prepare these solutions. Before him, Viktor Alekseyevich Sidorenko worked as the director of the department of nuclear reactors. The website Meduza pointed out that transcripts of Legasov's memoirs are available on the internet, like on the website Pseudology. Numerous other scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Energy and the Ministry of Energy took active part in our discussions. And then they paid attention. And didnt go near that Three Mile Island station for three years. [28] Ustynyuk was called to Legasov's office and found him to be "extremely agitated and low-spirited" following the decision. Risks could be taken in this work, and I did risk a lot. Legasov: RBMK? After I arrived at the institute, they met me, washed me, cleaned me as much as it was possible. This was sort of the main task in that period. This is how five out of ten projects became a failure. Then came the chemical solutions. The first drops were, it seems, at the end of the day on the 27th. We had to avoid reaching a temperature of 2,500 degrees. However, on the other hand, it was plain to see how he crumpled that package of money, not like a prize. [1] Legasov recorded his memoir The Legasov Testament using audio tapes[7][30] where he described his involvement with the Chernobyl liquidation. And, each time considerably different figures and results were reported, from astonishingly high to relatively moderate. This mistake was fundamental. Legasov: Well, how should I put this. So I did not know many details or specific discussions. They were taken away on Sunday. It was a serious problem and it was resolved by the army with great intensity. But my participation in the events at Chernobyl was certainly justified because there was no reactor anymore, just its remnants which is my direct speciality. Then I dropped by home, met my wife, who was of course very upset, and by 10 a.m. arrived at the Politburo, where in turns, I reported to Scherbina and comrade Ryzhkov about what was happening. This colossal task was organized; even now it is hard to imagine how. In Kiev, after we got off our plane, what surprised us was a long line of black government cars and an anxious crowd of various Ukrainian chairmen, led by comrade Lyashko Aleksander Petrovich. Legasov: The director of ChNPP was in shock, from beginning to end. Figure out, together with the Energy Commission headed by Anatoly Petrovich, what percentage of energy should be in the form of nuclear energy in a given task. Some supports were not strong enough and reinforcement was necessary. Lead is everywhere but it is the one that comes from exhaust gases of vehicles. Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov strongly recommended we also start dropping clay, a very effective radionuclide absorbant. That was the first problem. Our Institute was not part of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. And the Ministry, after evaluating the scientific proposals, was technically obliged to execute them precisely. 2002-2023 | email | guestbook | to top The operators had tried to cool it down, but unfortunately, two people had already been killed. I graduated from the Faculty of Physicochemical Engineering of the Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology named after Mendeleyev. Get started for FREE Continue. And each one accumulates experience and mistakes, and all of it belongs to all humankind. Sometime around the 9th of May, it seemed to us that reactor number 4 had stopped living, breathing, burning. In this time, there would be an emission of radioactivity in aerosol form over large distances. A large number of construction resources was spent on creating objects that were not related to the field of the department. To date, it has generated more than half a billion roubles of income for the Government, which more than covers that cost of 25 million roubles for the projects that failed. If there is a danger of a person receiving a dose of 25 rem immediately or within a certain amount of time, then the local authorities have the right tohave the right to but are not required tocarry out an evacuation. People will start to pack for too long. I will not talk about safe reactors because the requirements formulated by Novikov are very accurate. And I saw the face of that man who, on the one hand, was very proud that he had managed to do this difficult task in such difficult conditions. On the first day, the 26th, except pouring water there at night, nothing was done on the night of the 26th. Later in documentaries or memoirs, I read that some personnel had fled their posts. In a shocking and humbling act of self-sacrifice, Legasov recorded everything he knew about the truth behind Chernobyl's explosion and hung himself, knowing that his sudden death would force. [2][3][4] He attended secondary school in Kursk. Because, well, one telegram was just provocative, clearly provocative. Of course, what happened at Chernobyl has real, not abstract, culprits to blame. As a result, a basis emerged that could be discussed widely, critiqued and supplemented. )", "Chemist, investigator of Chernobyl nuclear accident dies at 51", "Legasov suicide leaves unanswered questions", INSAG-7 The Chernobyl Accident: Updating of INSAG-1, "A bust of Hero of Russia Valery Alekseevich Legasov will be installed in Tula", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Valery_Legasov&oldid=1133988963, Chief Scientific Advisor of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 13:14. But the growth was not qualitative but quantitative. Anyway, I called the experts with the drawings of the reactor and all the information that could be gathered. The decision has been made and what can we say about it now. We, as experts, were saying that. In this case I could not stand it so I wrote a very angry letter together with Anatoly Pavlovich where we strongly objected this excessive allocation of people who would get high radiation doses when constructing that second plate. At the end of the day, this group of course is made up of intelligent specialists, and maybe everything will fall into place. But the degree of risk in my own projects was quite high. Kursk, Chernobyl, Smolensk NPPs, all use these RBMK reactors. First, to not touch it and leave it as is with its radiation, counting on nature itself to somehow recycle it all, that is, the needles, that are the most contaminated, would fall off, after which the needles could be gathered and buried, while the tree trunks, branches, all these would remain relatively clean. For example, different groups in June provided different estimates of the radioactivity that had escaped reactor number 4. But nevertheless, the psychological shock and, say, because of that psychological shock, cardiovascular dystonia was found in a large number of experts and continues to be found up until now. In Soviet nuclear energy, precisely because of the pace that had to be quite high, because ten years had been lost, this third element, from my point of view, was criminally ignored. Secondly, SEV countries could not be consulted because they didnt have such a device. Preferably information obtained from multiple sources and there were cases when the military had provided information that was different from what the civil services had given. From there, they monitored the crews that were above reactor number 4. That is why he put me in charge of management affairs, of resource management. An enormous amount of work had been done and as a result, outside the 30-kilometre zone, we were receiving more and more precise maps that showed the degree of contamination of various areas. He would fill out all the measurement journals beforehand, all the parameters, even before the end of the shift. He instructed Meshkov to gather a group of specialists, to be called from Moscow if needed, and investigate the cause of the accident. Then the second option, a sarcophagus but with a concrete dome; why we rejected thatbecause the structure wouldnt withstand it. Although I generally believe that our science and technology has developed very successfully, by hook or crook, surprising the whole world with colossal achievements in almost all fields. The first four tapes feature only Legasov giving a recounting of the entire event, from the moment he learned of the accident to his final days at the Kurchatov Institute. An investigation was started. He, in my opinion, organised the work perfectly. This is why the first job of the first team that went in was to start the reactor shutdown procedure of the 1st and 2nd blocks. The question of the gap between the physical concepts of what the reactor should be, and the poor-quality production of fuel, and the whole range of technological operations, many of which seem insignificant, and which are practiced at our stations. Owing to my experience, having come from other workplaces, I quickly determined the cause of this damage - a volumetric explosion of the power of 3 to 4 tons of TNT. was a good physicist, of course, but he also got into this story. All the effort of decontaminators needed to be focussed on fully normalizing the conditions in the 3rd block and also on cleaning the construction base. I have generated an EPUB file of the text that is suitable for ereaders. There is no other. The trip was in the evening. We need to think about some special measures to localize accidents for those 28 devices that dont have containments. The last time I saw him was in the Politburo meeting on the 14th of July [transcript of the Politburo meeting] when the cause of the Chernobyl accident was being discussed. As a customer, the Finnish side demanded, having studied international experienceand by this time, an international standard had developed requiring precisely the three elements of safety: a reliable reactor, reliable operation and mandatory containment. Terrible working conditions. That was the second line of defence- protection of the people. And further, figures of fuel release, they are less clearly known. This may have been a truly random coincidence but this is really my direct speciality. They, so to say, maintained this connection. The decisions were made on the 26th of April, and carried out from that day through the 2nd of May. There were not enough of these devices for everyone who were involved in the work. Same as the Americans. Another thing. After that they would send it to TASS, to the television and the newspapers to inform people about what was going on, what the situation was. Today, our measures are planned; such and such have been implemented and such and such issues worry us. But Legasov's daughter claimed to Moskovskij Komsomolets. Valery Legasov. I will not describe the whole thing in detail here. And it turned out that it was determined solely by the lead that comes from automobile exhaust pipes from leaded gasoline. passed it. Formally however I had to be replaced in Silaevs team by Eugeny Petrovich Ryazantsev - deputy of the director of our Nuclear Energy Institute. David R. Marples has suggested the adversity of the Chernobyl disaster on his psychological state was the factor leading to his decision to take his own life[6] and that Legasov had become bitterly disillusioned with the failure of the authorities to confront the design flaws. Legasov: He was not there. But some simple, repetitive tasks could have been done by small crewless, radio-controlled aircrafts. And they were built not by the Ministry of Medium Machine Building but by the Ministry of Energy. [28] Legasov had an article on industrial safety entitled "From Today to Tomorrow" published in Pravda on 5 October 1987 but it received little interest. Legasov: was to prevent 2,500 degrees. Not one sensible action or word could he utter. And because this maximally-safe reactor and maximally-safe operation are not always a 100-per cent safe, then the philosophy of safety requires mandatory implementation of the third elementthe element that presumes that an accident will happen; and that radioactivity and other dangerous material will get out of the device. But because my professional occupation was in a different area, I was an observer integrating all this information that was entirely impossible to discuss in the ministry; because they were used to having very specific engineering discussions, such as how to replace one kind of steel with another, how to modify a technological system. The question arose that there are no cases, nuclear energy has to be developed, and then comrade Slavsky, the Minister of Medium Machine Building comes up with a proposal, in parallel with the VVER reactors, Adamovich: [QUESTION INTERRUPTS THE NARRATION ASKING TO EXPLAIN THE VVER ABBREVIATION AND DIFFERENCES FROM RBMK]. At the same time, under my leadership, work developed in the field of safety of chemical production, which also poses a great danger. The last time this was observed was on the 9th or 10th of May. It was clear that this was the graphite that had been burning and each particle of it carried with it a significant amount of radioactivity - so a new, difficult task presented itself to us: the graphite burns at a speed of 1 tonne per hour. As for ongoing activities, I was involved with them only indirectly because it was not my speciality, and they were never assigned to me. These surveys were done for both the total amount of gamma radiation and the isotope spectrum of gamma radiation. Maybe only the chief engineer of reactor control sometimes left his chair to carry out some operations. It was immediately obvious to us that dropping anything from a height of 200 metres would create a complex situation around reactor number 4 - when 200 kilogrammes of material falls from a height of 200 metres it throws up dust, and that dust carries some amount of radioactive material. During the first days of the Chernobyl tragedy, the flaws in our information services were very evident. I invited two or three experienced journalists to it. And in Shymkent in South Kazakhstan, there will definitely be an accident. There was military acceptance of each piece of equipment, specially trained personnel, the highest requirements, etc. I assume there are 7 tapes as mentioned in the Chernobyl miniseries and have been released on YouTube, but can't seem to get my hands on it. "[5] In public, Legasov supported the official story that operator error caused the accident. But the operational staff there is considerably smaller than in our stations. And this was preventing the creation of acceptable radiation conditions. Making important information accessible to the English-speaking audience. That's why a decision was made to completely replace the roof of the 3rd block, put in a new one with appropriate safety devices that would allow the necessary work to continue and launch the 3rd block of the Chernobyl NPP in time. If, however, the researchers received robots that had good all-terrain travel capability in the most difficult conditions, then their electronics would fail because of the high gamma radiation and they also stopped. This story in my opinion, organised the work perfectly Institute, they monitored crews! A truly random coincidence but this is what I say [ will happen unless., organised the work how he crumpled that package of money, not abstract, culprits to.! This connection will definitely be an emission of radioactivity in aerosol form large! 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