Burning zone

A fire in the Chernobyl zone, which could not put out for many days, reminded the Kiev tragic April 1986

I send the text to the editor when there is already an official message: Ukrainian rescuers localized and practically eliminated the fire in the Chernobyl zone. But on the evening of Monday, April 13, I handed over to the “New” website that I would never have to write about in my life ... And I also realized why many Kyivians did not find the strength to watch the Chernobyl blockbuster until the end of the world blockbuster.

Volunteers-"panic" and calm officials

The fire in the zone, which could not extinguish for ten days, almost reached the storage facilities of the radioactive waste "Podlesny". The distance from the fire to the burial ground is two kilometers in a straight line.

The news was not fake. The one who “generated” her, Yaroslav Emelianenko, a member of the Public Council in the State Agency for Management of the Occupation Zone (GAZ), the head of the Chernobyl Association, was in the epicenter of events, and not in Kyiv, for self -isolation, had a pass to the regime territory. The shooting made by Emelianenko competed with the personnel of the Hollywood film of disasters or with a misfortune that recently raged in Australia. What is the “lower-scale fire”, “decaying of deciduous-grass litter”, appearing in the reports of public emergency situations as a routine, albeit a nasty story repeated here every year ...

Yaroslav and the volunteers colleagues announced an urgent assembly of assistance and took what firefighters needed the most now, for the most part-completely young, like in 1986, the guys in the “fuel”-this is clearly visible on numerous videos-camouflage, and not in special protective costumes: the supply of respirators is not so much from coronavirus as more formidable and familiar to Ukraine- Radioactive infection, sleeping bags and karemas (Cheesniki exhausted with shifts fell and fell asleep right on the grass, near red cars with corpus luteum) and drinking water.

As of Monday, the zone was saved by 415 people and about a hundred units of equipment, including three An-32P aircraft and three helicopters, which had already dropped into the flaming hectares of pine forest and dozens of deserted, lost among the wild nature of fifty-thousand tons of water. Sometimes the rescuers ran out to meet the residual remnants of the herds of the horses of Przhevalsky. They were launched into the zone in the order of the recreational experiment many years ago and multiplied in the wild ...

The State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety published a forecast and map: April 14, on Tuesday morning, the wind, which still carried smoke from fires to the north-west, towards the Belarusian Gomel, will change the direction and go to Kyiv. However, the Center insisted that the gamma-pace in the capital of Ukraine did not increase and is at the levels corresponding to the normal, natural radiation background, and the concentration of cesium-137 is generally two orders of magnitude lower than the radiation and hygienic regulations, and do not carry the radiological threat to the population. Therefore, no additional measures to protect people outside the zone are still needed to take.

The Pandan was a state agency for managing the alienation zone - neither a danger for a bonno nuclear power plant, nor for the hob (storage of spent nuclear waste), there are no objects for other potentially dangerous ones, although the fire is complex. The post of Yaroslav Emelianenko, replicated media, officials declared almost dirty PR technology:

“Chernobyl” loses its “gold mine” at the reception of wealthy tourists from all over the world, in desperation from the fact that thirty percent of “exhibits” like abandoned huts burned down, and he thurses the colors ...

"Calm, only calm!" - Anton Gerashchenko, a former People’s Deputy, now Deputy Minister of the Interior, was ashamed through Facebook Facebook. And with links to google cards and shooting from the space explained why not one of the hits in the zone “too tough”. Like, these fireproof containers made of monolithic reinforced concrete, designed for hundreds of years, reliably hide radioactive waste, protecting them from any intervention from the outside. He literally told the following about the object "Podlesnoye":

“Around the storage, the forest was specially cut down to avoid the threat of a fire. To green spaces, a distance of more than 100 meters. The fire, which went towards the "subsurde", was extinguished on distant approaches in the morning. One of the experts who built the Holy-2 and Hyat-1 and “Podlesny” told me: “Anton, there would be nothing to burn there, even if everything was poured there with napalm!” There is no change in the radiation background at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, nor in the alienation zone, nor beyond its borders. ”

The categorical of judgments of the Deputy Minister of the Interior recalled the famous episode, once described by Alesy Adamovich, who attended a prominent builder of nuclear power plants with a geologist during the post-Chernobyl conversation. When the first needed to strengthen his arguments, he put his hand to his chest: “Honestly, it will no longer explode!”

Opinions of the population, at least, that part that the social networks monitor around the clock, were divided. Older people saw the parallels with the Soviet April 34 years ago: they say, the authorities also deliberately silence or overwhelm the situation, but there is a fundamental difference-the world has long become an open information system. There NASA on its site gives detailed maps, where and what is burning in the zone, foci and smoke are visible near the Chernobyl itself! And if we recall the “shelter” objects, that is, the new consideration over the remains of the exploding fourth power unit, the Vector enterprise, the camshaft of the nuclear power plant, the arc radar facility on the territory of the former closed military town of Chernobyl-2 ... The young generation was raging in accordance with its logic:

“Now they are scared by Chernobyl, this fucking quarantine gathered to extend until the summer!”

President Zelensky reacted to the fire: “I carefully monitor the situation in the Chernobyl zone. I know that firefighters are doing everything possible. I am grateful to them for the courage. " Zelensky promised in the very near future to get exhaustive information from the head of the State Emergencies Ministry of Nikolai Chechetkin and concluded: “The conclusions will not be forced to wait. Society must know the truth and live in safety. ” Most likely, Chechetkin in any situation will be resigned.

On the live broadcast of the Tok-Show “Freedom of Speech”, it was called to explain Alexei Ryabchin, Deputy Minister of the United Ministry of Energy and Ecology. The first leader, I note, is still not appointed, and now, in anticipation of the crisis, his chair has become not just hot - electric. Ryabchin was trying to joke, then lamented: “We wanted to make Chernobyl a tourist magnet, we had such strategies ... But the tourist potential has not yet been lost.”

But the next evening news influenced the hot atmosphere much more personnel perturbations. Nature came to the rescue, the very pagan, Drevlyansky gods, which are not there. In the north of the Kyiv region and over the Chernobyl zone, it was poured rain, which was reported by Victoria Ruban, a press secretary of the State Emergencies Ministry in the Kyiv region. She was next to the calculations of firefighters. And then it was bod in Kyiv. The wind set off to a complete calm.

You can’t deceive professionals

Natalia Degtyarenko, a press secretary of Energoatom and a native of Chernobyl, refuses any interview for the media, complies with professional ethics, according to which to officially inform about what is happening-the competence of the legitimate "owners" of the territory, gas. But it was the Facebook page of Natalia in the last few days that became a mirror that reflected in real time what happened in the regime territory.

According to Degtyarenko, on April 13, the fire was close (there was only two hundred meters remained) took to the industrial site of the confinement. It burned and near the fifth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The flame destroyed the remains of the so -called "red forest", one of the most "dirty" places of the zone. A strong wind caught up with the fire to the “dead” (now extreme-tourist) city of Propyat and railway station Yanov South-Western Railway. A special electrician runs through the station every day, which is not a decree quarantine, - the Chernobyl shit from the city of Slavutich to work and vice versa, on the road, are traveling ... You can’t deceive the professionals.

Kyivans were more and more worried about their own health. In the capital for a week, caustic bells hung in the air for a week, and in the evenings deserted streets - here I act as an eyewitness - resembled Twin Pixes: the light of lanterns barely made his way through ... And this during the quarantine period of the pandemic, beating in the lungs! To imagine that during the Lokdown, the wipers entered into a criminal conspiracy and rushed to massively burn last year's foliage along with plastic, it turned out with difficulty. On April 10, the capital of Ukraine, having overtook Hano and Jakarta, took first place in the world in terms of air pollution with an average quality indicator of 159 units. The rating was the company IQ Air, which is engaged in instruments for measuring the atmospheric pollution and constant air monitoring.

On the official page of the State Agency for Management of the Alienation Zone, I drew attention to the commentary of the page of the page of Igor Zhivadovsky, one of the founders of the Chernobyl National Museum and the Chernobyl rehabilitation center, in the past of the Liquidator, before that employee of the Chernobyl Television Security Department, that is, not just a person from Kyiv Street. Idivadovsky wrote: “... Fire lifts small“ hot particles ”of radionuclides in the air, which have been in the soil for 34 years. Air flows pick up these particles and are carried by hundreds of kilometers. So it was with the Chernobyl disaster. Therefore, the Chernobyl zone of alienation is a rather dangerous radiation object. About a thousand not passported burial grounds ( *places in the zone where, during the elimination of the accident, phoned equipment, instruments, utensils, pets and so on. - *O. M. ), and still no one knows what they buried there.

It is necessary to do an analysis of air aerosols, and not flaunt the gamma paces with normal readings. ”

The opinion of Professor Ivan Kovalts, a consultant-examiner of the Ukrainian Center for Ecological and Water Projects, one of the most famous specialists in modeling the distribution of radionuclides in different environments, a developer of a unique program for modeling accidents on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant called Rhodes called Rodos, The program is already working at the Rivne, Khmelnitsky, Zaporizhzhya and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants, not only predicting how radiation in the air and water will go, which settlements should be evacuated in case of emergency, and where you can do with prevention.

Kovalet answered Facebook community: “They ask about the“ hot particles ”in the Chernobyl zone. The first thing that rises to write is “there are no them there,” because the opinion is generally accepted among specialists. It means that fires should not lead to the removal of “hot particles” from the zone, since they ( *particles. - *O. M. ) penetrated to some depth and were fixed on the particles of the soil or partially dissolved over the years, radioactivity was leaned out of them - but at different speeds for different types of particles, different types of soils. ” But the professor made the conclusion not too optimistic. I convey only the essence.

The latest measurements of the counting concentrations of the “hot particles” in the air of the zone with a wind rise or during fires were carried out a very long time ago, in 1994, by German scientists. Kovalts has calculations for which - evaluative! - Given the real weather conditions, the points of fire in Chernobyl and according to the satellite data of MODS and VIIRS, the meager percentage of particles could get into people in Kyiv. We need studies of a very large sampling volume.

So far it is known about one injured rescuer. During the extinguishing of the fire, he was injured, a fracture of his legs, and placed in the hospital.

Firefighters underwent severe risk

And it is still unknown what dose the population received

On April 14, Bruno Shareyron, a nuclear physicist, director of the laboratory of CRIIRAD, a non-governmental commission for the search for independent radioactivity information, contacted.

Mr. Shareyron prepared a communique, in which serious concern about the health status of firefighters who eliminated the disaster is expressed. In addition, the consequences for residents of nearby areas, including Kiev residents, are not yet clear. Below - excerpts from the document.

“The picture made by NASA on April 14 at 4 hours GMT ( 7 a.m. Kiev time. - Yu. S. ), demonstrates that the fire approached the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for several hundred meters. (...)

Created by the NOVARKA consortium, uniting (French) companies Bouygues et Vinci, sarcophagus (...) is designed for 100 years. It remains to find out how this metal structure, which, as stated, is able to survive in extreme conditions (tornado, earthquakes ...), withstand fires. The descriptions emphasized its ability to withstand temperatures from-43 ° to + 45 °, which is not too reliable, taking into account climatic changes

And absolutely ridiculous compared to the temperature of the flame. (...)

There are also many questions about the influence of a fire on many warehouse and processing objects. The colossal amount of radioactive waste is stored at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and nearby (outside the sarcophagus) ... In 1986, not all excavations made in order to bury countless materials were registered.

[And after the statements that the fire managed to eliminate] it was necessary to maintain extreme vigilance, since the authorities reported several times that the situation was under control, while reality was completely different.

Firefighters' health danger

In areas subjected to fire, soils have a very high level of radioactive pollution. (...) At the GRP-750 station, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the radiation level was in the range from 1.22 to 1.32 microseverts per hour, which is more than 10 times higher than the average level recorded by the station. In the Korogodsky forest near the line of fire, one meter from the soil surface, the power of gamma radiation levels was in the range of 1.6–1.7 μSv/h.

In October 2000, our commission [CRIIRAD] accidentally discovered a very active point on the edge of the road connecting the city of Pripyat and Chernobyl nuclear power plants. The dose of gamma radiation in one meter from the soil surface was 247 μV/h, which is 2470 times higher than the typical natural. The soil was highly polluted by Cesium-137 (2.7 million BK /kg) with a whole cocktail of other radioactive substances. (...)

So even if firefighters use very effective means of protecting the respiratory system, they are subjected to significant external gamma radiation, the only way to protect against which is to limit the presence of presence [in the zone].

(Shareyron clarified that “it is advisable to reduce the presence to the very minimum” and gave an example: in the case of working in areas where the radiation level is comparable with the fact that he was measured on the road from Pripyat to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,

Firefighters in 5 hours will receive a dose of irradiation above the annual permissible.

In addition, “in 2019, the British laboratory recorded a sector where 1 hour is enough to obtain the most acceptable annual dose.” - Yu. S. ).

Population risks

As we noted on April 8, pollution plows first moved south in the direction of Kyiv. (...) Measurements carried out on April 8 in Kyiv showed values ​​from 5 to 7 MBK/m3.

Then the trajectory of the loops changed: on April 9 and 10-in the direction of the north-west of Ukraine, on April 10–11-in the direction of Kyiv (...), on April 13–14, the wind drove the infected loops to the north or to Kyiv. (...)

The values ​​of cesium-137 activity in the surrounding air of several millibeckels per cubic meter are hundreds of times higher than the background level. Given the official standards, for Kiev, induced doses remain “low”. But what about the population living closer to the place of fire - both in Ukraine and in Belarus?

In addition, the impact is cumulative, and you will have to wait to summarize. For a thorough assessment of induced doses, detailed measurements will also be required. (...)

We must not forget about the risk that the fire could raise hot nanoparticles of very high radioactivity containing plutonium.

Some may not be found if they are too small for them to be held by aerosol filters.

It is also necessary to evaluate the effect (dropped doses) on the soil and food. (...)

CRIIRAD continues to carefully monitor the situation. ”

Kyiv, Paris