Burning Bright: The Chernobyl Disaster

 Historical Perspectives: Burning Bright: The Chernobyl Disaster

Written by Eshaan B. Patel

Preface

On the 26th day of April, 1986, in western Ukraine, Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had a full-on core melt-down, leading to an intense, destructive fire. Policemen, firemen, soldiers, and others were immediately sent to try to help mitigate the disaster. The radiation released by this disaster led to the poisoning of the air in Ukraine, Byelorussia (now known as Belarus), parts of Russia, and areas around the whole world as well. The USSR’s government did not address the disaster immediately, and instead tried to cover up the situation. The accident itself was responsible for the deaths of a total of 49 people, but many more died afterward as a result of the high dose of radiation they had received during the event. The disaster at Chernobyl continues to impact the way people think and feel about nuclear power today.

Clockwise from top left: Hospital, plant corridor, welcome sign, Pripyat's never-opened amusement park, inside the reactor itself, maternity hospital, the flames of the explosion.

Account of Alexander Yuvchenko

25 April, 1986 at 11:50 PM

Dear Diary,

Through the good grace of God, our plant has been continuously supplying power for decades. Also, I would like to express my gratitude for its existence: otherwise, I would not have earned a single kroner my whole life. O thee, my single reason for existing further! Thou art the only reason I have the abilities to provide for my otherwise utterly poor family and I! Yesterday my glorified children and wife and I all had a grand dinner usually reserved for the wealthy aristocrats. Ode to Chernobyl, thine shall be your soul in the case of my death, for thou has provided my family and I more than we even ought to deserve! My prestige and fame in this gloried town of Pripyat is only because of thy function, Chernobyl!

---

26 April, 1986 at 12:17 AM

Dear Diary,

My night shift has been going absolutely fine. I have been hearing a few small thuds over the past quarter-of-an-hour, but it does not seem concerning at all. Instead of expediting through my work as usual, I am planning to sit down and relax for a few short minutes, with a little timer to alarm me when to go back. There is not really much to do right now but play chess with some friends of mine.

---

26 April, 1986 at 12:59 AM

Dear Diary,

As proud Soviets, me and my comrades must listen to our leader Gorbachev. He has talked about Soviet "free speech" and "economic development", but I am obviously against that as a proud member of the Communist Party. Even under the rule of Stalin this nation was better. Why am I writing about this right now? I just had a random thought in my mind. But after the thought originally came, I had begun to feel some small vibrations through my desk and the floor, and when I went to the toilet, it felt even worse, so I chose to do my business in the sink. It began about ten minutes ago and it has gotten slightly worse following every five. This odd vibration is continuing, corroborated by my other colleagues at this plant. A thud followed this.

---

26 April 1986 at 1:17 AM

Dear Diary,

It has not been long since I have written my last entry, but I wanted to talk some more. A series of much greater thuds have taken place. I could not put aside the feeling that something had gone wrong, however I was not permitted to enter the operations room at that time. My personal power meter has outright refused to show any signs of the output voltage getting higher. Oh, just imagine the situation we would be placed into if the power shut off to the hospital! Anyways, the vibration is now so significant that I am quickly falling when I stand up, so I am doing my work on a makeshift desk that I have anchored on the floor made out of books and tape. This way, it will not be possible for the vibrations at the current time to knock me over. It would be so embarrassing to me if I fell while sitting in front of my colleagues!

---

26 April 1986 at 1:28 AM (cont. at 1:40 AM and 2:12 AM)

Dear Diary,

According to my wristwatch, it has been merely eleven minutes since my last entry. However, I have noticed that steam has been coming out through the crack in my office door between it and the floorboards. Thankfully, in the case of a fire, I know to stay low. My door is also made of two halves, so I opened only the bottom half. No fire alarm was sounding, so I decided to, instead of crawling, crouch-walking would do. Nothing seemed wrong, so I fully opened the door and went back into my office space to do some work that I was assigned to by my boss five minutes ago. The game of chess from earlier with my friend Dmitri ended in a draw. Why the fudge does it always have to end with this?

The work I was assigned had to do with the test at 1:23 and 4 seconds in the morning, which we do every single week. I was supposed to do constant monitoring of it. My colleague then randomly barged in and for some random reason asked for paint, of all things.

(cont.) I just went out of my office to check on the reactors and I found that a lot of the steam was coming out of the vicinity around Control Room No. 4. I sprinted at the speed of light all the way back to my office, and I tried to ring the number for the control room. However, there was no line. It seemed like the operator wasn't there.

Suddenly, the line for Control Room No. 3 rang. Perhaps it was the true source of the steam. The floor started shaking and frequent thuds were audible, and the vibration of my office destroyed my makeshift floor desk. I answered the phone on speaker.

"Alex," the operator spoke, "I'mma need some stretchers. Got them in your vicinity area? They store them in the closet closest to your office."

"Yes. I shall bring them into the room as soon as possible," I replied, hanging up right after speaking.

I entered the closet. I did not see stretchers, just a metal cabinet. I opened it up and found six stretchers. With the help of my colleague, I transported them all into the control room. To my absolute surprise, a part of the ceiling was beginning to collapse. It contained one of my friend's offices.

I decided to, of all things, quickly rescue my friend from the office by punching through the door. He came down with me into the control room. My other colleague's shift was over, so he had left already.

"Alex? What in the name of God is happening? Did war begin? Was the reactor shelled?"

"I don't currently have any idea what is happening at all. I just came from Control Room No. 3 and your upstairs office was collapsing into the room. On my ground floor office, I saw steam building up."

"Oh hell yeah! I felt my room vibrating. My peeing time was even rudely impeded since the building wasn't still!"

"Same exact thing here. We need not complain any longer, since we need our progress to be expedited in order to receive any hope of figuring out what happened to the reactor."

(cont.) I found another one of my friends in the vicinity of the disaster zone. The coolant tank had exploded, which explains the thuds. I initially did not recognize him because he was swimming in the dusty water and wound up with a slightly disfigured face and was wearing black when he normally wore blue. I helped him wipe himself and I realized his identity. His back also seemed slightly bent more than usual from laying down on the metal part of the tank. After that, since the power had gone out, I grabbed a torch from the closet and lit it up. It was my friend Vladimir!

"First, quickly go to the corridor by the other side of the tank room," he whispered. "There are others injured there." I chose to proceed.

Vladimir, by this point, was feeling better, so we both quickly got Dmitri to come help. He did, and also brought the reactor's operator. We helped all of them into chairs from the closet in the area.

After this, we decided to look at the wall. There was a gaping hole with shards of metal everywhere! I took my friends to the other side of the coolant room to find the operator of that room. I did not see him, so I proceeded to the right-side wall of the room. The operator was there, but he was trying to swim through the water in order to get away from the situation. We also helped him into chairs.

---

26 April 1986 at 2:59 AM

Dear Diary,

The operator was extremely injured, bruised, electrically shocked and burned, but he was still standing up. He told me to go to the exact location in which the initial blast took place. I proceeded to follow his instructions and I walked to the area in the basement right below the reactor. I saw my friend, Valera Khodemchuk, in the vicinity. The rest of the area was mysteriously empty.

A little before a quarter to three, I brought Vladimir and Dmitri into the basement shortly after I wrote the last entry. Then, Dmitri had the ingenious idea to go outside and check on what had happened. By this time, the power was out in all parts of the plant and I only had a handful of coal left for my torch. There was also no way left to call the operators of different reactors.

We walked through the narrow corridor that we were not supposed to traverse. Valera said that there was an implication of there have being a fire, as the otherwise white and open hallways were covered in ash and some of the iron doors had clearly been heated. Vladimir advised me not to touch them.

"This seems to be an implication of a nuclear meltdown," I said. "We should evacuate before we die here."

"Nah. It ain't even close to that. One reactor needs repair, nothin' else though. I'mma stay here and live while you continue your miserable lives," said Valera.

My friends and I, except for Valera who stayed behind and even had a nap sleeping like a baby, chose to continue on. The sprinkler suddenly went on and we saw fire in the place of the emergency exit. Both the main office and the nurse's office were in the flames! My boss was dead! I will not be able to write more because I am currently in a big rush.

---

26 April 1986 at 3:10 AM (cont. at 3:45 AM)

Dear Diary,

I sprinted as if I was literally a particle of light itself and I found the main entrance. After smashing the door, I exited the plant facility and was outside. Vladimir looked up and noticed the entire building in flames, illuminating the entire area as if there actually was power that day. I am absolutely confident that Valera is dead by now. I will continue soon.

(continued) The plant was in ruins. Vladimir thankfully moved me out of the way; otherwise, I would have died instantly from the gamma rays produced. I still think that the light blue laser-like light it produced was a beautiful sight to behold. I met with a fireman who resembled my cousin's cousin Boris Alshaev. He was the only one in his squad that managed to survive. He even went inside and fought the flames on the ceiling using the water on the ground instead of the water in the truck, which would have significantly slowed him down. Also, the other firemen were using the truck's and the hydrant's water got stuck in the rubble.

---

26 April 1986 at 6:02 PM

Dear Diary,

I shall choose to write to you before I sleep for the night, as not one soul is able to do their job anymore with the meltdown. In summary, today was a very eventful day; where explosions and a nuclear meltdown happened. Boris and I have became friends at this point. Unfortunately, Valera is dead and I will be attending his funeral tomorrow. Sadly, Dmitri also died from radiation exposure after a few hours. I do owe a ton to Boris, who aided significantly in saving me and Vladimir from the disaster location. I hope to tell the story of Chernobyl to all the generations to whom I shall be the forefather to in order for all to understand the dangers of new technology, especially nuclear. My clairvoyantness is proven, for I had accurately predicted the death of the unfortunate Valera. I sincerely hope his afterlife in Heaven, if it exists at all, is good. The local paper stated that sadly, a total of forty-nine people had been killed, including my beloved good friends. Still, the incident isn't on state news yet! How shall they not know about this?

Bibliography

Works Cited

ABC News. “Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster: Gorbachev Speaks, May 14, 1986.” YouTube, 23 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k3wnXBE5S0. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.

“В. Жуковский Та Ін. - Чернобыль: Адрес Мужества.” Myslenedrevo, 16 May 1986, www.myslenedrevo.com.ua/uk/Sci/HistSources/Chornonobyl/1986/05/16/ChernobylAdresMuzhestva.html.+Accessed+6+Dec.+2022. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022 with Google Translate enabled. 

“Chernobyl Disaster.” Citizendium, 12 Sept. 2013, citizendium.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Disaster. Accessed 12 Dec. 2022.

“Chernobyl Disaster.” Simple English Wikipedia, the Free Encylopædia, 23 Nov. 2022, simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster.

Condon, Judith. Chernobyl and Other Nuclear Accidents. Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1999.

Influence of various factors on individual radiation exposure from the Chernobyl 

disaster. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC149393

Streissguth, Thomas. Nuclear and Toxic Waste. Amsterdam, Netherlands, Amsterdam UP, 2001.

CIA. “Radiation Hotspots Resulting From the Chernobyl’ Nuclear Power Plant Accident.” University of Texas Libraries Collections, 1996, collections.lib.utexas.edu. Accessed 15 Dec. 2022.

“The Children of Chernobyl.” CONTENTdm, 1990, collections.digitalmaryland.org/digital/collection/saac/id/10793. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022.

USA TODAY. 17 Apr. 2016, eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/17/Chernobyl-timeline-disaster-30th-anniversary/82899108.

Webb-Carter, Oliver. “Gorbachev and the Chernobyl Disaster.” Aspects of History, 15 Jan. 2022, aspectsofhistory.com/gorbachev-and-the-Chernobyl-disaster.