We arrived at the building of the city party committee in the central square. Everyone was tense and anxious to get there quickly, to understand what had happened and to discover the scale of the disaster that we had to face. The most interesting ones were those proposed by academy member Viktor Aleksandrovich Kabanov, preliminarily tested in the dust storm-prone regions of Central Asia. The logic behind our process of decision-making was as follows. Because I already spoke at the Politburo once. Say they allowed it and some cars left, some of the residents left in their own cars, but the cars were, of course, contaminated. Eugeny Pavlovich Velihov who as it seemed was watching too much TV about the China syndrome, arrived with concerns which I reported to Rizhkov and Ligachev. Legasov: Our general helplessness is again associated with the fact, and lies in the fact, that as long as there is a monopoly of a particular institution over the system, it will continue. The quality of specialists, that had yet to master their professions, left much to be desired. They started the work. The energy leadership started to regard the importance of this element with great understanding, although without fully realizing the seriousness of this issue themselves. [1] The institute members denied Legasov the position which was perhaps surprising given his seniority and public visibility. Terrible working conditions. After our high-ranked guests had arrived, they deliberately started their visit from the places where evacuees had been placed. valery legasov tapes transcript. So, this was my own professional work to which I managed to attract most interesting young people who with style, with good education and understanding, are still developing this extremely interesting area of Chemical physicsfrom which Im sure will originate very many developments, important for practice and for education. All the work was transferred to the revised composition of the first Government Commission (the one led by Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina) that had been approved. But again, a commission led by comrade Voropaev was created. You can find a transcript of these tapes here, but you won't find the line from the first episode that opens HBO 's miniseries ("What is the cost of lies? Such were the conditions. Legasov: The VVER reactor is a large metal vessel in which the active zone is immersed in water. The probability increases day by day because of again, those devices without containment. I was trying to explain to Boris Evdokimovich the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979. If I say something wrong, I will not be published and my dissertation will fail. It was almost by accident that he found himself included in the state commission on response to the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, his daughter Inga Legasova recalls. This is the philosophy that applies to any entity which makes the system reliable. But RBMK, there was only the Leningrad station initially and, yes, Chernobyl and thats all. Thank God that it did not happen here or in a factory but on a railway tanker car transporting phosphorus. And the Government Commission itself remained in Pripyat. These were the questions that I had. well I was involved in, at least during the statement of the problem and in the development of these works. The next question arose when it became clear that the crater of the wrecked fourth block was exhausting a lot of radioactive gas. These decisions were targeted solely to deal with the situation faster, lessen the consequences. This was, I think, in 1985. [1] He also considered the possibility of ground water contamination to be extremely low, but precautionary work was initiated to cool the reactor using an underground system. But it was precisely such brochures, leafletssame as the Japanese ships with their products like watches, voice recorders, video recordersthat were needed in those conditions. So, [in Chernobyl] our press reported a lot of information of the second type, about people, about their impressions, about what was happening there, but reported very little, unlike the TASS regular, about what has happened so far and what has changed. He consistently looked for possible sources of issues that would lead to accidents, systematized them, and made probabilistic evaluations of events, estimates of the likelihood of an event leading to a release of radioactivity. And a good reactor specialist was one who had mastered the design of a particular reactor, who could ably calculate, say, the zone, who knew all the accidents that happen at a station, who could come to any facility and assist in its physical and organisatorial launch, quickly figure out what was happening there, and report to the management of the institute or the Ministry. But I felt that his approach to the questions of safety was serious. Now it has merged with Minmash. These were the questions we had. This meant that they did not have time to inform some of the people or that they had come from somewhere else. I was a member of the Science and Technology Council of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, but I was not a member of the reactor unit of this council. Legasov: Yes, the reactivity increases by 13 times every second whereas the rod takes five or six seconds to descend. [7] Legasov was impressed by the operation of the KGB in the area but considered the Civil Defence group to be in shambles. He told me that, as planned in advance, teams were gathering to respond to each hazard and either go to the site itself or coordinate from a distance, and take over control of the station personnel. There is a lot of graphite, a lot of zirconium and water. 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. But it was very quickly discovered that the water itself did not have much contamination, but the silt was affected. In practice, this then turned out to be the best decision, as all the wells had been built and the measuring wells showed that there was practically no penetration of contaminated water into the ground. This was a very important meeting. Further traditional report lasting in general two hours, room of the academic secretary Nikolai Sergeyevich BABAY, but in order to, discuss the main positions of the report during the break. Do you understand? Legasov: Or I will. These divisions of the Ministry of Energy had taken part in the construction of the village at Green Cape, and also in the construction of many stations for the decontamination of vehicles, quite a lot of which had gathered on the site by then. The first thing to do was reconnaissance. The research group, as I have already said, had divided its tasks as follows: researching the wreckage of reactor number 4; finding the fuel; and surrounding it with the maximum number of diagnostic devices. A shift manager moves from one facility to another thinking that things will be the same. And now it appears that it is impossible to make the rods move that fast after all. Any expert from any level (from the laboratory supervisor to the director of the institute) could request information, interfere in the work of a station, write reports, propose something. Today, this number can be called a reliably established number so that numbers like in tens of tons or kilotons, etc dont go around. An accident is possible in which organophosphorus compounds form, a single breath of which is lethal. Then another hour or so passed as the situation with the plane was ascertained, and this group of people flew out early in the morning to the location. This is when Aleksander Petrovich and Vyacheslav Pavlovich Volkov, director of the Kola and then the Zaporozhye nuclear power stations, recently told me about an episode, where a group of his comrades visited the Kola station, and witnessed, in his opinion, a complete disorder in the organisation of the technical process. But that will be tomorrow, and right now there isnt. Legasov: No, that is just a mistake. But the Ministry of Health had developed these rules. Valery Legassov transcriptions from his tapes Valery Legassov transcriptions from his tapes Open navigation menu Close suggestionsSearchSearch enChange Language Then the transfer, unwarranted transfer of experience from the military industry to domestic infrastructure. The first because it melts at low temperatures and because it has some ability to extract radioactive elements, on top of which it can act as a protective shield against gamma rays - these facts made it a good option. The idea of creating such an expert group and doing this work was mine. Around 11 a.m. on the 26th of April, Boris Evdokimovich [Scherbina], after considering all our recommendations, decided to go ahead with the mandatory evacuation. He told me that he had issued appropriate orders, but I think those never got executed. So if the temperature reached 2,500 degrees, then it would not be three per cent of radioactivity that gets released but the entire 100 per cent. The second consequence of the delay in the development of nuclear energy was the fact that there were insufficient production capacities for, say, VVER reactor shells. I tried to set up a safety measures laboratory. Make sure to subscribe to his Youtube channel. 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. The world accepts the normal standard of safety for any dangerous industry including nuclear power stations. As for the 30-kilometre zone itself, it was under the charge of the experts from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy, the experts from the Kurchatov Institute, experts from the Radium Institute and the experts from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Do you see? That means 30 times the contamination. I left the meeting immediately, called for a car and went to my university to find someone from the reactor team. how much did it increase? Entirely another case was when Eugeny Pavlovich proposed to construct another such plate under the wreck that was outside of reactor number 4. He is no better or worse than any manager of this rank, and he followed the accepted rules of the game, moving up the career and scientific ladder he took on too much, especially in recent years. Nevertheless, the potential reserve of chemical energy in a device of this type was maximal relative to, say, another comparable device. This was dangerous and hard work because they had to go inside the block every time and search for the most suitable spots that would reliably diagnose the condition of reactor number 4. But I should tell you that the Minsk station, in particular, wouldnt pose any danger. And this, of course, gave rise to all sorts of wrong and sensational, sometimes maybe not sensational but still inaccurate, depictions. And only when we had the containments, the stations being built for the last 5-6 years, the ones being designed now, and the ones that will be built, all are being built with containments. 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. Immediately desperate research began, that resulted in proposals on how to deal with the situation and prolong the life of the reactor housing. The first was about the population. Thats why I personally and also the military specialists [had to go there]who by this time had very successfully deployed a research centre at the village of Ovruch that allowed a large contingent of military specialists to consciously perform decontamination tasks, measurement tasks, all the tasks that they had been assigned. We, as experts, were saying that. 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. There were countless industry councils where something was discussed. Watch all. But that it was more difficult to control became clear. In the last few months, I dont know what is going on because after I formed the group, I was excluded from this work. So that there is an understanding. Sometimes, I even think that an event of this magnitude could have had a special television and newspaper section consisting of two parts. It was a very difficult task because the semiconductors used in these thermal cameras were heavily affected by the powerful gamma radiation that hit them, skewing the results drastically. He instructed Meshkov to gather a group of specialists, to be called from Moscow if needed, and investigate the cause of the accident. Not one sensible action or word could he utter. But he was told, Dont stick your nose in the wrong place. Only Neporozhniy said, Ill go take a look. So the situation has only worsened. And when Nikolai Ivanovich Rizhkov in a politburo meeting spoke his words about how nuclear energy was inevitably moving towards a grave accident, immediately all these facts, accumulated over many years, somehow aligned in my mind, and his words highlighted that it really was so. After we had described the situation, the pivotal decisions were made. The army divisions, together with the organizations of Ministry of Medium Machine Building, were cleaning the roofs of the building where the 3rd and 4th blocks of the Chernobyl NPP were. For me it seemed to be important that during this proactive stage the measures to supply people, to create proper living conditions for them, to gather experience for such a large scale work organisation. But this talk of the reactor smouldering, emitting radioactivity in considerable amounts, were so strong that orders were given to manufacture various types of covers for it. 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 contrary, I myself went to the dangerous areas of the 4th reactor building several times, to clarify reconnaissance data or to estimate the amount of work remaining for certain operations, and always had to take soldiers with me for help. All this reasoning should be correlated with actual graphs: when what was emitted and when it stopped. So many discussions were had on this topic, so many surveys, so many measurements, and in the end, it turned out that the main source of contamination was the contamination on the roof of the 3rd block. Legasov: No, as far as I know, Petrosyants was not specifically involved in these matters. We became convinced that no country in the world had a proven, experimentally verified action plan for such a situation. But since Shcherbina had approved the decision, the local authorities had promptly begun the preparations. So I started preparing a note in which I described all that was known by that time: how the events had developed, how the destruction of reactor number 4 had happened, what work had already been done, and what work was yet to be performed. Similar [good] words can be said to theMinistry of Internal Affairs of Soviet Union, and Ukraine as well, because the evacuation process, the rapid cordoning off of the zone, and quick establishment of regime and order, as much as possiblethey did that very well. Because in all other cases, he fought for the right things, even though it was difficult to fight. The applied part was awarded the Lenin prize. After that, all three of us signed that note and sent it to Gorbachev. I remember how during the war there were two types of daily communications which were published in our newspapers or TASS reports: where we recaptured German-occupied points, where we retreated, where we took a large number of prisoners, where we suffered a partial defeat. So they directed all their efforts towards harmonizing these speeds to make a dry channel. And the second one was that the temperatures can be too high within these masses. We started saving on containments. G. Alimov interview with Legasov, Izvestia newspaper, 1987. International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group, D. Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology, State Committee for Science and Technology, Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, " , ", "Valery Legasov: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know", "Who was Valery Legasov, the Soviet scientist that saved the world from Chernobyl? But what should those actions be? It was necessary to tackle the issue of checking the equipment in the 1st and 2nd blocks, of checking the remaining structure and equipment in the 3rd block. Because nothing has changed so far. Secondly, what was calculated turned out to be significantly higher in practice than was accounted for because physical knowledge about this device was still not sufficient. Of course, we continuously gathered air samples on filters to measure the amounts and the dynamics of the radioactivity that was being exhaust. An attempt to pour concrete in an area was unsuccessful because there were rather large gaps through which the concrete flowed to the levels below. And so, it's not about the operators . Well, actively aid Anatoly Petrovich in the management of the institute, considering his occupation at the Academy of Sciencesplanning the work of the institute, the regime of its work. We received many telegrams from abroad, by the way. But, additionally, at least three major design mistakes were made in this device. [5], For around two years, Legasov worked as an engineer at the Siberian Chemical Combine in the city of Tomsk-7, as a shift supervisor. 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