Memorial complex to the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident in Zaporizhia
Hello my Steemit friends and casual readers!
I am glad to announce that more than two years have passed since I joined the Steemit community!
Therefore, today we will have a colourfull article devoted to another historical event...
Many people remember that on April 26, 1986 (the year in which I was born), Ukraine experienced the largest accident in the history of the peaceful atom at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the consequences of which have not yet been eliminated.
The construction of the Chernobyl NPP began in 1970, and 27 September 1977, the first power unit of the station with an RBMK-1000 reactor with a capacity of 1,000 MW was launched and connected to the power system of the Soviet Union. Later, three more units were commissioned, the annual energy production from which amounted to 29 billion kilowatt-hours in total!
Reactor Number 1 partial meltdown
The first accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant occurred on 1982 September 9, the elimination of which took about three month.
The incident occurred during an explosion during a trial launch of the 1st unit. As a result, one of the technological channels of the reactor collapsed, the graphite stack of the core was deformed, the staff was not injured, no significant radiation contamination occurred.
Reactor Number 4 disaster
On the night of April 26, 1986, the turbogenerator was tested at the 4th power unit of the ChNPP.
It was planned to stop the reactor (in this case, the emergency cooling system was disconnected as planned) and measure the generator parameters.
Safely shut down the reactor failed. At 1:30 am Moscow time, an explosion and a fire occurred at the power unit
© Valery Zufarov and Vladimir Repik / TASS photo chronicle
State of emergency became the largest catastrophe in the history of nuclear energy: the reactor core was completely destroyed, the building of the power unit collapsed seriously, a significant release of radioactive materials into the environment occurred.
Intense fire lasted 10 days during which countless radioactive material got into the environment, most of which settled in the territory of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
On April 27, the city of Pripyat was evacuated (47,500 people), and in the following days the population of the 10-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. During May 1986, a total of about 116 thousand people were resettled from settlements in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the station!
The effects of pollution have also been noted in the arctic regions of the USSR, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
The first short official report on the state of emergency was transmitted to TASS on April 28. According to the former General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev, said in an interview with the BBC in 2006, May Day holiday demonstrations in Kiev and other cities were not canceled due to the fact that the country's leadership did not have the “full picture of what happened” and was afraid of panic among the population.
Only on May 14, Mikhail Gorbachev made a television address in which he spoke about the true scale of the incident.
At different stages of liquidation of the accident consequences were involved:
• 18.5 thousand employees of the internal affairs bodies;
• from 16 to 30 thousand people from different departments for decontamination work;
• over 7 thousand radiological laboratories and sanitary epidemiological stations;
• more than 210 military units and divisions with a total strength of 340 thousand troops, of which more than 90 thousand troops in the most acute period from April to December 1986;
• A total of about 600 thousand liquidators from all over the former USSR participated in extinguishing fires and clearing.
In the period from July to November 1986, a concrete sarcophagus was built with a height of over 50 meters and external dimensions of 200 by 200 meters, which covered the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, after which the emissions of radioactive elements temporarily stopped. The weakness of this structure, calculated until 2006, was its leakage, which is why it was decided to build the second sarcophagus, which covered the previous outdated structure. The total cost of completing the project, of which the sarcophagus is a part, is 2.15 billion euro provided by the EBRD, Russian and US governments, as well as other funds and international donors!
Although my city was in the opposite direction to the spread of radiation pollution and was slightly affected by the accident, but annually we held memorable events to perpetuate the memory of the Chernobyl NPP liquidators.
Last year, one day before the anniversary of the accident, on April 25, the construction of a memorial complex for the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident was completed!
The monument is a nine-meter stainless steel gate - a kind of portal, in front of which there is a two-meter polished metal sphere on an inclined plate.
This memorable complex has become a place where people will be able to remember and mentally thank those people who participated in the aftermath of the accident. Residents of our city have been waiting for the construction of this monument for many years, previously gathering on this date next to a piece of ordinary granite stone that preceded this memorial.
I believe that the complex is located in a good place and its execution carries a great meaning.
The ball symbolizes the atom, which let the fate of many people on an inclined, gate-portal connected the past and the future together ...
This is not like the standard monuments - it is a more modern design that blends in very organically with this place.
In preparing the text, materials of IBRAE RAN were used, data from WHO and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the book "For the rest of your life" by Rosenergoatom, the magazine "Chemistry and Life" Used materials of wikipedia and TASS news agency
Camera: Nikon W300
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