Kyshtym accident in 1957

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

The 1957 Kyshtym accident is not a nuclear power incident, making it difficult to call it nuclear. It is called Kyshtymskaya because the tragedy occurred in a secret city, which was a closed facility. Kyshtym is the settlement closest to the crash site.

The authorities managed to keep this global accident under wraps. Information about the disaster became available to the population of the country only at the end of the 1980s, that is, 30 years after the incident. Moreover, the true scale of the disaster became known only in recent years.

Technical accident

The Kyshtym accident in 1957 is often associated with a nuclear disaster. But in reality this is not entirely true. The accident happened on September 29, 1957 in the Sverdlovsk region, in a closed city, which at that time was called Chelyabinsk-40. Today it is known as Ozyorsk.

It is noteworthy that in Chelyabinsk-40 there was a chemical accident, not a nuclear one. The largest Soviet chemical enterprise "Mayak" was located in this city. The production of this plant assumed the presence of large volumes of radioactive waste,which were stored at the plant. The accident happened with this chemical waste.

During the Soviet Union, the name of this city was classified, which is why the name of the nearest settlement, which was Kyshtym, was used to designate the accident site.

Cause of the disaster

Production waste was stored in special steel containers placed in tanks that were dug into the ground. All containers were equipped with a cooling system, since radioactive elements constantly released a large amount of heat.

On September 29, 1957, the cooling system in one of the storage tanks failed. Probably, problems in the operation of this system could have been detected earlier, but due to the lack of repair, the measuring instruments were worn out in order. Maintenance of such equipment has proved difficult due to the need to stay in an area of high radiation levels for a long time.

As a result, the pressure inside the container began to increase. And at 16:22 (local time) there was a strong explosion. Later it turned out that the container was not designed for such pressure: the force of the explosion in TNT equivalent was about 100 tons.

Scale of incident

It was a nuclear accident that was expected from the Mayak plant as a result of a production failure, so the main preventive measures were aimed at preventing this type of emergency.

No one could have imagined that Kyshtymskayathe accident that occurred in the storage of radioactive waste will take away the palm from the main production and attract the attention of the entire USSR.

So, as a result of problems with the cooling system, a 300 cc tank exploded. meters, which contained 80 cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste. As a result, about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. The force of the explosion in TNT equivalent exceeded 70 tons. As a result, a huge cloud of radioactive dust formed over the enterprise.

It started its journey from the plant and in 10 hours reached the Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions. The affected area was colossal - 23,000 square meters. km. Nevertheless, the main part of the radioactive elements was not carried away by the wind. They settled directly on the territory of the Mayak plant.

All transport communications and production facilities were exposed to radiation. Moreover, the radiation power for the first 24 hours after the explosion was up to 100 roentgens per hour. Radioactive elements also entered the territory of the military and fire departments, as well as the prison camp.

Evacuation of people

10 hours after the incident, permission was received from Moscow for evacuation. People all this time were in the contaminated area, while not having any protective equipment. People were evacuated in open cars, some were forced to walk.

After the Kyshtym accident (1957), people caught in radioactive rain passedsanitary treatment. They were given clean clothes, but, as it turned out later, these measures were not enough. The skin absorbed radioactive elements so strongly that more than 5,000 victims of the disaster received a single radiation dose of about 100 roentgens. Later they were distributed to different military units.

Pollution cleaning work

The most dangerous and difficult task of decontamination fell on the shoulders of volunteer soldiers. Military builders, who were supposed to clean up radioactive waste after the accident, did not want to do this dangerous work. The soldiers decided not to obey the commands of their superiors. In addition, the officers themselves also did not want to send their subordinates to clean up radioactive waste, as they suspected the danger of radioactive contamination.

Notable is the fact that at that time there was no experience in cleaning buildings from radioactive contamination. The roads were washed with a special agent, and the polluted soil was removed by bulldozers and taken to a burial site. Cut down trees, clothes, shoes and other items were also sent there. Volunteers who responded to the accident were given a new set of clothes every day.

Accident rescuers

People involved in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster, for the shift should not have received a radiation dose exceeding 2 roentgens. For the entire time of presence in the infection zone, this norm should not exceed 25 roentgens. Yet, as practice has shown, these rules are constantly violated. According to statistics, forduring the entire period of liquidation work (1957-1959), approximately 30 thousand Mayak workers received radiation exposure exceeding 25 rem. These statistics do not include people who worked in the territories adjacent to Mayak. For example, soldiers from neighboring military units were often involved in work dangerous to life and he alth. They did not know for what purpose they were brought there and what was the real degree of danger of the work they were assigned to do. Young soldiers made up the vast majority of the total number of liquidators of the accident.

Consequences for mill workers

What did the Kyshtym accident turn out to be for the employees of the enterprise? Photos of the victims and medical reports once again prove the tragedy of this terrible incident. As a result of a chemical disaster, more than 10,000 employees with symptoms of radiation sickness were withdrawn from the plant. In 2.5 thousand people, radiation sickness was established with complete certainty. These victims received external and internal exposures as they were unable to protect their lungs from radioactive elements, mainly plutonium.

Help from local residents

It is important to know that this is not all the trouble that the Kyshtym accident in 1957 entailed. Photos and other evidence indicate that even local schoolchildren took part in the work. They came to the field to harvest potatoes and other vegetables. When the harvest was over, they were toldthat the vegetables must be destroyed. The vegetables were piled into trenches and then buried. The straw had to be burned. After that, the tractors plowed up the fields contaminated with radiation and buried all the wells.

Soon, residents were informed that a major oil field had been discovered in the area and they urgently needed to move. The abandoned buildings were dismantled, the bricks were cleaned and sent to the construction of pigsties and cowsheds.

It is worth noting that all these works were carried out without the use of respirators and special gloves. Many people did not even imagine that they were eliminating the consequences of the Kyshtym accident. Therefore, most of them did not receive supporting certificates stating that their he alth had been irreparably harmed.

Thirty years after the terrible Kyshtym tragedy, the attitude of the authorities to the safety of nuclear facilities in the USSR has changed dramatically. But even this did not help us avoid the worst disaster in history, which happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986.