Midnight in Chernobyl

by Adam Higginbotham

  Many admired him: Description in Read, Ablaze, 47; V. V. Lomakin’s recollections, part VI in Appendix 8 of Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 188; Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 151. Georgi Reikhtman, a submarine reactor room officer cashiered from the Soviet navy as part of a political purge, said that Dyatlov was a fair man, instrumental in having Reikhtman hired to work at the Chernobyl station when no one else would give him a job (Reikhtman, author interview, September 2015).

  Eager to learn, they believed: Steinberg, author interview, 2015.

  For all his hours spent poring: Nikolai Steinberg recalls that Dyatlov “would sometimes make offhand remarks about the RBMK being unknowable. We, the young, found this odd. We thought that Dyatlov, for one, knew everything.” Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 151; Steinberg, author interview, 2017.

  On the left sat: The acronym SIUR stands for starshiy inzhener upravleniya reaktorom. Author visit to Chernobyl nuclear power plant Control Room Number Two, and interview with Alexander Sevastianov, February 10, 2016; Stolyarchuk, author interview, 2016.

  Forming a wall: Author visit to Chernobyl nuclear power plant Control Room Number Two, and interview with Alexander Sevastianov, February 2016; Stolyarchuk, author interview, 2016.

  In the strict technical hierarchy: Glukhov, author interview, 2015.

  Akimov, a gangling thirty-two-year-old: Akimov’s date of birth is given as May 6, 1953, in “List of Fatalities in the Accident at Chernobyl” [Список погибших при аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], undated, Chernobyl Electronic Archive, available at http://pripyat-city.ru/documents/21-spiski-pogibshix-pri-avarii.html.

  He and his wife, Luba: Read, Ablaze, 38–39.

  Akimov was clever: Steinberg, author interview, 2015. When tasked with calculating the hypothetical probability of a serious accident occurring at Chernobyl, Akimov had estimated it at one in ten million a year (Read, Ablaze, 43).

  Control Room Number Four had now grown busy: See the account of Yuri Tregub, who supervised the second shift at Unit Four that day, in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 39; Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 72.

  Perhaps assuming: This explanation was suggested by Fomin in court testimony provided by Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 146.

  Akimov, a copy of the test protocol: Stolyarchuk, author interview, 2016; Tregub, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 180–81.

  When Toptunov had assumed responsibility: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 4–5.

  So Toptunov began the process: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 211; Alexander Sich, author telephone interview, December 2016. The subsequent accident report by a working group of Soviet experts likewise faults Toptunov for the power fall: INSAG–7, “Annex I: Report by a Commission to the USSR State Committee for the Supervision of Safety in Industry and Nuclear Power,” 1991, 63. However, the authors of the INSAG–7 report mention that Dyatlov himself attributed the incident to equipment malfunction (International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 11).

  Now Toptunov watched in dismay: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, p. 73; Tregub, testimony in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 40.

  “Maintain power!”: Tregub, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 181.

  At this point: On two previous occasions when operators had attempted to raise power in ChNPP reactors without waiting out the poison override time, word had reached nuclear safety inspectors in Moscow about what was happening, and they called Brukhanov immediately to have the power increases halted. Yuri Laushkin, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 175.

  Dyatlov himself would maintain: In his memoir, Dyatlov describes leaving the control room before Toptunov transferred the system to Global Automatic, in order to “more thoroughly inspect areas with heightened radiation risk,” which he thought had been made safer by the reduction of the reactor’s power. He states that he did not return to the control room until 00:35 a.m. (Chernobyl: How It Was, 30).

  The recollections of others: Tregub also testifies to Dyatlov’s presence in the control room at this time (court testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 180–81). So does Metlenko (179), who says that Dyatlov stepped away from the console at about 00:28 a.m. “mopping his brow.”

  “I’m not going to raise the power!”: Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 55–56. Medvedev writes that Toptunov would recount his thoughts at this moment while in the medical center in Pripyat, less than twenty-four hours later. This view is expanded upon by Shcherbak’s interviews with Igor Kazachkov and Arkady Uskov, quoted in Chernobyl, 366–69 and 370–74.

  The deputy chief engineer withdrew: Metlenko, testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 179.

  “Why are you pulling unevenly?”: Tregub’s account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 41. The elapsed time period is noted in Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 212.

  By one in the morning: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 71.

  Yet the engineers knew: Ibid.

  Running the pump system: Stolyarchuk, author interview, 2016.

  The rush of water: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 212–14.

  A few moments later: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 8.

  Some of the operators: Razim Davletbayev (deputy chief of the Turbine Department), court testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 188; Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 31.

  Ten men now stood: Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 71–72.

  “What are you waiting for?”: Davletbayev, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 188.

  Simulating the effects: Stolyarchuk, author interview, 2016. The test was initiated by the electrical shop, according to Fomin’s court testimony provided in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 142.

  The test program closely duplicated: Metlenko states in his court testimony that the 1984 test was conducted on Turbo-generator no. 5, which was in Unit Three: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 178.

  The chief engineer, had ordered that test himself: Fomin, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 142–44; International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 51–52; Supreme Court of the USSR, court verdict for Brukhanov, Dyatlov, and Fomin, July 29, 1987, provided in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 198.

  Fomin made two important changes: Fomin, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 145.

  Dyatlov, Akimov, and Metlenko: Tregub’s account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 41.

  Upstairs at mark +12.5: Room description is from author visit to Main Circulating Pump room of Unit Three, Chernobyl nuclear power plant, February 10, 2016.

  164 of the 211 control rods: Figure II-6, International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 119.

  “Oscilloscope on!”: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 40.

  Inside the reactor, the cooling water: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 8.

  Toptunov’s control panel revealed nothing unusual: International Atomic Energy Agency notes in INSAG–7 (p. 66): “Neither the reactor power nor the other parameters (pressure and water level in the steam separator drums, coolant and feedwater flow rates, etc.) required any intervention by the personnel or by the engineered safety features from the beginning of the tests until the EPS-5 button was pressed.”

  “SIUR—shut down the reactor!”: Court testimonies of Yuri Tregub and Grigori Lysyuk (senior foreman of the electrical shop), in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 182 and 184; Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 40. Although Lysyuk maintains that the power surge was reported by Toptunov before the AZ-5 button was pressed, Dyatlov would say that this happened afterward, which also corresponds to further testimony and evidence from the computer data recovered after the accident.

  A transparent plastic cover: Description of AZ-5 button provided by Nikolai Steinberg in author interview, 2017.

  “The reactor has been shut down!”: Tregub, court testimony, in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 182.

  Oustripped the record
ing capacity: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 66.

  For one scant second: Ibid., 119.

  But then the graphite tips: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 48; International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 4 (section 2.2).

  The chain reaction began to increase: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 67; Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 220.

  A frightening succession of alarms: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 55.

  Electric buzzers: Author visit to Control Room Number Two and interview with Alexander Sevastianov, February 10, 2016.

  “Shut down the reactor!”: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 41.

  Standing at the turbine desk: Tregub’s account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 41–42.

  But the reactor was destroying itself: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 231m; International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 67.

  The channels themselves broke apart: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 67–68.

  The AZ-5 rods jammed: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 31.

  Out on a gantry at level +50: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 219 and 230nl; Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 73–74.

  At Toptunov’s control panel, the alarm sounded: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG–7, 55.

  The walls of the control room: Tregub’s account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 42.

  A rising moan: Stolyarchuk, author interview, 2015.

  As the fuel channels failed: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 221–22.

  The temperature inside the reactor rose: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 63.

  The lights of the Selsyn dials flared: Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 71.

  Releasing the AZ-5 rods from their clutches: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 57.

  A mixture of hydrogen and oxygen: This hypothesis is supported by the USSR Vienna report (USSR State Committee on the Utilization of Atomic Energy, “The Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and Its Consequences”), 21; and Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 223. For an alternative explanation, and discussion of the location of the second explosion, see Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 62–63.

  As much as sixty tonnes of TNT: Estimates of the force of the explosion that destroyed the reactor vary enormously. An estimate of around twenty-four tonnes of TNT is cited in K. P. Checherov, “Evolving accounts of the causes and processes of the accident at Block 4.” Valery Legasov’s estimate would be just three to four tonnes of TNT (Legasov Tapes, Part One, p. 12). Karpan (Chernobyl to Fukushima, 62) says thirty tonnes, citing “Expert Conclusions” of state investigators reached on May 16, 1986. Finally, the KGB report of May 15, 1986, specified “no less than 50 to 60 tonnes” (Danilyuk, ed., Z arkhiviv, Document no. 34: “Report of the UkSSR OG KGBM and the USSR KGB in the town of Chernobyl’ to the USSR KGB concerning the radioactive situation and progress in investigating the accident at the Chernobyl’ NPS”).

  The blast caromed off the walls of the reactor vessel: Although this continues to be a matter of debate, a 1989 report by the USSR State Committee on Safety in the Atomic Power Industry explains that the shield was thrown far enough in the air to be flipped over: A. Yadrihinsky, “Atomic Accident at Unit Four of Chernobyl NPP and Nuclear Safety of RBMK Reactors” [Ядерная авария на 4 блоке Чернобыльской АЭС и ядерная безопасность реакторов РБМК], Gosatomenergonadzor Inspectorate at the Kursk Nuclear Power Station, 1989, 10–11. See also US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in “Report on the Accident (NUREG-1250),” 2–16 and 5–6. Further details of damage caused by the initial explosion are given in Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 84–85.

  Almost seven tonnes of uranium fuel: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 84. Radioactive fallout from the accident was detailed in a top-secret report on May 21 by Yuri Izrael, chairman of the State Committee for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Goskomgidromet) to Nikolai Ryzhkov, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers: “Regarding the assessment of the radioactivity situation and radioactive contamination of the environment by the accident at the Chernobyl NPP” [Об оценке радиационной обстановки и радиоактивного загрязнения природной среды при аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], May 21, 1986, Microfilm, Hoover Institution, Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), Opis 51, Reel 1.1006, File 23.

  1,300 tonnes of incandescent graphite rubble: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 405.

  Inside his workspace: Alexander Yuvchenko, author interview, 2006.

  Over in the turbine hall: Yuri Korneyev (turbine operator, fifth shift, Unit Four Chernobyl nuclear power plant), author interview, Kiev, September 2015.

  Former nuclear submariner Anatoly Kurguz: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 21.

  Tiles and masonry dust fell: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 49.

  A gray fog bloomed: Stolyarchuk, author interviews, 2015 and 2016.

  Outside the plant: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 11–12.

  6. SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1:28 A.M., PARAMILITARY FIRE STATION NUMBER TWO

  A purple cone of iridescent flame: Eyewitness testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 12.

  In the telephone dispatcher’s room: Anatoly Zakharov, author interview, Kiev, February 2016.

  Many of the fourteen men: Ibid. They arrived at the scene at one thirty in the morning, according to the Kiev Region Fire Department Dispatch Log, archive of the Chernobyl Museum.

  Pravik gave the order to go: Alexander Petrovsky, author interview, Bohdany, Ukraine, November 2016. Times and details of alarms and equipment are provided in the Kiev Region Fire Department Dispatch Log, archive of the Chernobyl Museum.

  Two extra tanker trucks: The Pripyat brigade was called out at 1:29 a.m. (Kiev Region Fire Department Dispatch Log). See also Leonid Telyatnikov’s account in Shcherbak, “Report on First Anniversary of Chernobyl,” trans. JPRS, pt. 1, 18.

  A number three alarm: Pravik confirmed the number three alarm by telephone at 1:40 a.m., according to the Kiev Region Fire Department Dispatch Log, Chernobyl Museum. Additional details: V. Rubtsov and Y. Nazarov, “Men of the Assault Echelon,” Pozharnoye delo, no. 6 (June 1986), translated in JPRS, Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Documents, 24–25.

  Now the giant superstructure of the plant: Zakharov, author interview, 2016; Petrovsky, author interview, 2016.

  Everyone was talking at once: Stolyarchuk, author interviews, 2015 and 2016.

  A constellation of warning lamps: This description is based on author visit to the control room for Unit Number Two at the Chernobyl plant, February 10, 2016, and Dyatlov’s court testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 157.

  In desperation, Dyatlov turned: Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 49; Anatoly Dyatlov interviewed by Michael Dobbs, “Chernobyl’s ‘Shameless Lies,’ ” Washington Post, April 27, 1992.

  “Lads,” he said: Read, Ablaze, 68; Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 49. In his memoir, Dyatlov denied giving the order to supply water to the reactor, insisting it was given after his departure from the control room by Chief Engineer Fomin. Dyatlov, Chernobyl: How It Was, 53.

  Engulfed in dust, steam, and darkness: Yuvchenko, author interview, 2006.

  From beyond the shattered doorway: Alexander Yuvchenko, testimony in Zero Hour: Disaster at Chernobyl, directed by Renny Bartlett, Discovery, 2004. Further description of the second operator, Alexander Novik, is from Alexander Yuvchenko, interview by Michael Bond, “Cheating Chernobyl,” New Scientist, August 21, 2004.

  Then Yuvchenko saw: Alexander Yuvchenko, author interview, 2006; Yuvchenko, interview by Bond, New Scientist, 2004. The moon was full at the time of the explosion, according to www.moonpage.com. Tregub’s own memory of the sequence of events, recalled in an interview with Yuri Shcherbak, differs from Yuvchenko’s (Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 42–43).

  The two men turned int
o the transport corridor: Alexander Yuvchenko, author interview, 2006. Although Yuvchenko would later be convinced the ethereal glow he saw was the result of Cherenkov’s Light, this phenomenon is visible only in mediums with a high refractive index, such as water—and unlikely to have been possible in the open air above Reactor Number Four (Alexander Sich, author interview, 2018).

  “Tolik, what is it?”: Zakharov, author interview, 2016.

  A scene of total chaos: This description is drawn from the testimonies of Korneyev and Shavrey (in Kiselyov, “Inside the Beast,” 43 and 47) and Razim Davletbayev (account in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 20).

  Pravik and Shavrey: Shavrey, account in Kiselyov, “Inside the Beast,” 47; Kiev Region Fire Department Dispatch Log, Chernobyl Museum.

  By two in the morning: Kiev Region Fire Department Dispatch Log, Chernobyl Museum.

  Established a crisis center: “Order No. 113: The measures concerning the emergency at the Chernobyl NPP” [О мерах в связи с ЧП на Чернобыльской АЭС], signed by Major General V. M. Korneychuk, April 26, 1986, “Operational Group of the Department of Internal Affairs of Kiev Oblast Lettered File on Special Measures in Pripyat Zone” [Оперативный Штаб УВД Киевского облисполкома, Литерное дело по спецмероприятиям в припятской зоне], April 26 to May 6, 1986, 5–6, Archive of Chernobyl Museum.

  “There’s a fire in Unit Four”: Piotr Khmel, author interview, Kiev, 2016.

  In his flat on Lenina Prospekt: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015.