Midnight in Chernobyl
Page 56
Leaving the engines running: Zborovsky, testimony in Gudov, 731 Special Battalion, 109–10.
At last, the water: Read, Ablaze, 136.
Every few hours, three men: Trinos, interview by Rybinskaya, Fakty i kommentarii, 2001; Zborovsky, interview by Babakov, Zerkalo nedeli, 1998.
At three in the morning: Trinos, interview by Rybinskaya, Fakty i kommentarii, 2001; Read, Ablaze, 136–37.
One truck’s engine coughed: Trinos, interview by Rybinskaya, Fakty i kommentarii, 2001.
The men were all frightened: Read, Ablaze, 136.
Another began ranting: Trinos, interview by Rybinskaya, Fakty i kommentarii, 2001.
“Don’t bring out the beast in me”: Zborovsky, interview by Babakov, Zerkalo nedeli, 1998.
Details of what had happened at the plant began seeping: Yuri Shcherbak, author interview, Kiev, February 2016. News spread by word of mouth as many of the 47,000 former residents of Pripyat were distributed across Ukraine, and rumors filled the information vacuum left by the state. Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 39–40.
The surveillance department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs: The Seventh Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the Ukrainian SSR, Report on Results of Public Opinion Monitoring with Regard to the Accident at Chernobyl NPP [Докладная записка о результатах изучения общественного мнения в связи с аварией на Чернобыльской АЭС], classified, addressed to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine I. Gladush, April 30, 1986, archive of the Chernobyl Museum.
But the streets of Kiev: Zhores Medvedev, The Legacy of Chernobyl, 161.
Radiation dose rates in the city had increased: Department of Science of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, “On several urgent measures to prevent health harm to Kiev’s population from the accident at Chernobyl NPP” [О некоторых неотложных мерах по предотвращению ущерба здоровью населения г. Киева вследствие аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], May 4, 1986, archive of the Chernobyl Museum.
The head of the Ukrainian KGB warned: Stepan Mukha, statement at the Ukrainian Politburo meeting, in Baranovska, ed., The Chernobyl Tragedy, Document no. 73: “Transcript of the meeting of the Operational Group of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Ukraine,” May 3, 1986.
By then, word had gone around: When this news reached the Politburo, Gorbachev and Ligachev discussed taking steps to remove Scherbitsky from his position at the head of the Republic. Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 45–46.
Days earlier, at a central Kiev pharmacy: Shcherbak, interview transcript, 2RR, p. 4; Shcherbak, author interview, 2016.
Worse still, rumors had also: Shcherbak, author interview, 2016; Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 157–59; Boris Kachura (member of the Ukrainian Politburo, 1980–90), transcript of interview conducted by Tatyana Saenko on July 19, 1996, The Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Oral History of Independent Ukraine, 1988–1991, http://oralhistory.org.ua/interview-ua/360.
That evening, crowds gathered: Read, Ablaze, 185–86; Gary Lee, “More Evacuated in USSR: Indications Seen of Fuel Melting Through Chernobyl Reactor Four,” Washington Post, May 9, 1986.
The Soviet internal passport system: Read, Ablaze, 185–86.
Fleets of orange street-cleaning trucks: Zhores Medvedev writes that water trucks did not begin regular washing in Kiev until May 6 or 7 (Legacy of Chernobyl, 161). Orange trucks are also mentioned in Serge Schmemann, “The Talk of Kiev,” New York Times, May 31, 1986.
“There is no truth to the rumor”: Interview with Deputy Minister of Health of the Ukrainian SSR A. M. Kasianenko, Pravda Ukrainy, May 11, 1986, cited in Marples, Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR, 149.
Crowds of frantic passengers: Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 152; Grigori Medvedev, “Chernobyl Notebook,” trans. JPRS, 61.
At the railway station: Yuri Kozyrev, author interview, Kiev, 2017.
Twenty thousand people left by car or bus: Plokhy, Chernobyl, 212.
Western reporters witnessed: Felicity Barringer, “On Moscow Trains, Children of Kiev,” New York Times, May 9, 1986.
Fearing mass panic: Lyashko, Weight of Memory, 372–73.
“Tell him that our outhouse”: Velikhov, My Journey, 277–78.
It wasn’t until around four in the morning: Trinos, interview by Rybinskaya, Fakty i kommentarii, 2001.
Deputy Minister Silayev insisted: Shasharin, “Chernobyl Tragedy,” 102; Ananenko, recollections on Soyuz Chernobyl.
Three men from the plant staff: Shasharin, “The Chernobyl Tragedy,” 102.
Clutching wrenches and flashlights: Ananenko, recollections on Soyuz Chernobyl.
Baranov kept watch: Ibid.
Inside he found 1,000 rubles: Zborovsky, testimony in Gudov, 731 Special Battalion, 113–14.
The academicians’ relief: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 68.
Some estimates now suggested: E. Ignatenko, Two Years of Liquidating the Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster [Два года ликвидации последствий Чернобыльской катастрофы] (Moscow, Energoatomizdat, 1997), 62, cited in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 72.
They were repeatedly stopped: Belous, account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 175–76.
At the same time: Bolshov, author interview, 2017; “Protocol No. 8 of the Meeting of the Politburo CPSU Operations Group on Problems Related to the Aftermath of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident” [Протокол № 8 заседания Оперативной группы Политбюро ЦК КПСС по вопросам, связанным с ликвидацией последствий аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], May 7, 1986, in RGANI, opis 51, reel 1.1006, file 20.
The most desperate measures yet: William J. Eaton, “Soviets Tunneling Beneath Reactor; Official Hints at Meltdown into Earth; Number of Evacuees Reaches 84,000,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1986.
In their lab outside Moscow: Arutyunyan, “The China Syndrome,” 79; Bolshov, author interview, 2017.
They were aghast: Bolshov, author interview, 2017; Arutyunyan, “China Syndrome,” 81.
The scientists no longer saw themselves: Bolshov, author interview, 2017.
They were met at the airport: Velikhov, My Journey, 278–79.
Their green overalls: TV footage of their landing is in Two Colors of Time, Pt. 1, mark 3.55, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax54gzlzDpg.
What the academician did not share: Velikhov, Strawberries from Chernobyl, 251.
The graphite fire: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG-1; Borovoi and Velikhov, The Chernobyl Experience: Part 1, 3.
The temperature on the surface: “Protocol no. 9 of the meeting of the Politburo CPSU Operations Group on problems related to the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident” [Протокол № 9 заседания Оперативной группы Политбюро ЦК КПСС по вопросам, связанным с ликвидацией последствий аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], May 8, 1986, RGANI, opis 51, reel 1.1006, file 21. A KGB report of May 11, 1986, attributes the fall in the temperature to the injection of gaseous nitrogen on May 7 and 8, but this conclusion remains questionable at best. Danilyuk, ed., “Chernobyl Tragedy,” Z arkhiviv, document no. 31: “Special Report of the UkSSR OG KGB chief in the town of Chernobyl to the UkSSR KGB Chairman.”
“I can see perfectly”: Velikhov, My Journey, 279.
At a press conference: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “IAEA Delegation Gives Press Conference in Moscow” (report published by TASS in English and broadcast by Moscow World Service on May 9, 1986), translated May 12, 1986.
That Sunday, May 11: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “Velikhov and Silayev: ‘Situation No Longer Poses Major Threat,’ ” May 11, 1986; and Serge Schmemann, “Kremlin Asserts ‘Danger Is Over,’ ” New York Times, May 12,
1986. Some video footage from this report is contained in the 1987 Soviet documentary Chernobyl: A Warning at 35:30.
Back in Moscow: Bolshov, author interview, 2017.
Five meters high and thirty meters square: Kozlova, The Battle with Uncertainty, 77.
“Build it”: Bolshov, author interview, 2017.
13. INSIDE HOSPITAL NUMBER SIX
“Two steps back!”: Esaulov, The City That Doesn’t Exist, 39–41; Svetlana Kirichenko, author interview, Kiev, April 2016.
By the time night fell: Baranovska, ed., The Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 58: “Update from the Ukrainian SSR Interior Ministry to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine on the Evacuation From the Accident Zone,” April 28, 1986. Undated handwritten list on p. 28 in Pripyat militsia File on Special Measures in the Pripyat Zone (archive of the Chernobyl Museum).
“Clean . . . Contaminated”: Esaulov, City That Doesn’t Exist, 40.
Valentina, a trained engineer: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015; Andrey V. Illesh, Chernobyl: A Russian Journalist’s Eyewitness Account (New York: Richardson & Steirman, 1987), 62– 63.
But Valentina had been separated: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015.
Thirty kilometers away, Natalia Yuvchenko: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interviews, 2015 and 2016.
By Wednesday, the official news blackout: Nikolai Steinberg writes that on April 30 he and the other senior staff of the Balakovo nuclear power station knew only that there had been an accident of some kind. They judged its severity by taking dosimetry readings from the sandals of a woman who had been visiting Pripyat and had left on the evening of April 26 without learning the true scale of what had happened. Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 10–12.
Nine stories of austere brown brick: Description of building and its surroundings from Gale and Hauser, Final Warning, 51, and author visit to the Institute of Biophysics, Moscow, October 15, 2016.
The first patients from the plant: Anzhelika Barabanova (burns specialist in the radiation medicine department at Hospital Number Six), author interview, Moscow, October 2016; Angelina Guskova and Igor Gusev, “Medical Aspects of the Accident at Chernobyl,” in Gusev et al., eds., Medical Management of Radiation Accidents, 199, table 12.1.
They had been met: Smagin, account in Chernousenko, Insight from the Inside, 66–67. Smagin left Kiev at noon on Sunday on a second special flight to Moscow, and said they were driven around the airport for an hour before being released from the plane.
A six-hundred-bed facility: Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
Some were still: Ibid., 2016; H. Jack Geiger, MD, “The Accident at Chernobyl and the Medical Response,” Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 256, no. 5 (August 1, 1986): 610.
The aircraft that delivered: Barabanova, author interview, 2016; Alexander Borovoi, author interview, October 2016.
By evening on Sunday: Angelina Guskova, The Country’s Nuclear Industry Through the Eyes of a Doctor [Атомная отрасль страны глазами врача] (Moscow: Real Time, 2004), 141–42. Other sources note slightly different figures for the number of Chernobyl victims admitted to Hospital Number Six. The figure of 202 is cited in Alexander Baranov, Robert Peter Gale, Angelina Guskova et al., “Bone Marrow Transplantation After the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident,” New England Journal of Medicine 321, no. 4 (July 27, 1989), 207. Dr. Anzhelika Barabanova (author interview, 2016) puts the number at slightly more than 200.
Ten had received: Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
The head of the Clinical Department: L. A. Ilyin and A. V. Barabanova, “Obituary: Angelina Konstantinova Guskova,” Journal of Radiological Protection 35 (2015): 733.
When Guskova failed to return: Guskova’s younger sister ensured that the letters were never sent: Guskova, interview by Gubarev, Nauka i zhizn, 2007.
In Mayak: Vladislav Larin, “Mayak” Kombinat: A Problem for the Ages [Комбинат “Маяк”—проблема на века], 2nd edition (Moscow: Ecopresscenter, 2001), 199–200; Brown, Plutopia, 172.
Later, the young women: Brown, Plutopia, 173–75.
That same year, at the age of thirty-three: Date of birth (March 29, 1924): “Angelina Konstantinovna Guskova: Biography” [Гуськова Ангелина Константиновна: биография], Rosatom; Guskova, interview by Gubarev, Nauka i zhizn, 2007.
The price of progress: This was true, for example, of the survivors of the K-19 submarine accident in 1961. Six of the worst-affected patients were sent to Hospital Number Six, according to Barabanova, and afterward told to lie to their doctors about the cause of their complaints. Matt Bivens, “Horror of Soviet Nuclear Sub’s ’61 Tragedy Told,” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1994; Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
Alarmed by the refusal: Guskova, The Country’s Nuclear Industry Through the Eyes of a Doctor, 141.
The following year: A. K. Guskova and G. D. Baysogolov, Radiation Sickness in Man [Лучевая болезнь человека] (Moscow: Meditsina, 1971); Ilyin and Barabanova, “Obituary: Angelina K. Guskova,” 733.
By 1986, Guskova: Ilyin and Barabanova, “Obituary: Angelina K. Guskova.”
She had treated more than a thousand: Mould, Chernobyl Record, 92.
It took only a few moments: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2015.
The hospital was dim: Robert Gale, author interview by telephone, June 2016; Richard Champlin, author interview by telephone, September 2016.
When the elevator: Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
By the time they awoke: Gunnar Bergdahl, The Voice of Ludmilla, trans. Alexander Keiller (Goteborg: Goteborg Film Festival, 2002), 43–45.
Some felt so well: Barabanova, author interview, 2016; Alexander Nazarkovsky, author interview, Kiev, February 2006; Uskov, account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 129–30.
Others noticed a reddening: Read, Ablaze, 144. The nature of radiation skin injuries is detailed in Fred A. Mettler Jr., “Assessment and Management of Local Radiation Injury,” in Fred A. Mettler Jr., Charles A. Kelsey, Robert C. Ricks, eds., Medical Management of Radiation Accidents, 1st ed. (Boca Raton, FL : CRC Press, 1990), 127–49.
Yuvchenko’s head had been shaved: Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
The radioactivity: Uskov, account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 130.
“Let’s go and have a smoke”: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2015.
As befits a disease: Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
A few meters here or there: Dr. Richard Champlin, “With the Chernobyl Victims: An American Doctor’s Inside Report From Moscow’s Hospital No. 6,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1986.
In the chaos that followed: Leonid Khamyanov, account in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 80–81.
But Guskova’s decades of work: Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
It was a laborious process: Champlin, “With the Chernobyl Victims.”
“Within the first three weeks”: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2016.
When a doctor came: Piotr Khmel, author interview, 2015. Despite clear public statements to the contrary made at the time by Soviet health officials, including Dr. Guskova herself, the belief that alcohol could cleanse the human body of radioactive poisons persisted in the USSR long after the accident. In fact, in the laboratory, ethanol has been demonstrated to have a mild radioprotective effect at the cellular level, although it’s unlikely a human being could drink enough alcohol to combat the effects of a lethal dose of radiation. However, at least one study demonstrates that mosquitoes are protected from the effects of radiation by drinking beer: S. D. Rodriguez, R. K. Brar, L. L. Drake et al. “The effect of the radio-protective agents ethanol, trimethylglycine, and beer on survival of X-ray-sterilized male Aedes aegypti,” Parasites & Vectors 6, no. 1 (July 2013): 211, doi:10.1186/1756-3305-6-211.
By now, the relatives: Bergdahl, The Voice of Ludmilla, 46.
From his bed, Pravik sent:
Letter quoted in Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 196.
On Tuesday they received a telegram: Telegram from Leonid Toptunov to Vera Toptunova, April 29, 1986, archive of the Chernobyl Museum.
When they arrived: Date of arrival given as April 30 in letter from Toptunov’s parents Vera and Fyodor, reproduced in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 362.
“Everything is fine!”: Vera Toptunova, author interview, 2015.
Dr. Robert Gale was a man of regular habits: Details drawn from Gale and Hauser, Final Warning, 33–36; Robert Gale, “Witness to Disaster: An American Doctor at Chernobyl,” Life, August 1986; Gale, author interview by telephone, 2016; Sabine Jacobs (assistant to Robert Gale), author interview, Los Angeles, September 2016.
Gale knew: Gale and Hauser, Final Warning, 36–37.
In Moscow, he met Lenin: Hammer would recast his first trip to Moscow as part of a voluntary humanitarian mission to help save the lives of Soviet children from typhus; in reality he had traveled to the USSR after his father had been imprisoned for carrying out an illegal abortion that had killed both mother and child—an operation that had actually been conducted by Armand, who would never fully qualify as a doctor. Once in the USSR, Hammer was set up by the Communist government as the owner of a useless asbestos mine and a pencil factory, which functioned as fronts through which the Cheka—the forerunner of the KGB—could finance a network of spies in the United States. The details of Hammer’s double life, which would only be fully revealed after his death in 1990 and the fall of the Soviet Union, are described in Edward Jay Epstein, Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer (New York: Random House, 1996).
“An almost unique bridge”: Gale and Hauser, Final Warning, 38.
By Thursday afternoon: “Top U.S. Doc Races Death,” New York Post, May 2, 1986.
On the landings of Hospital Number Six: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2016.
Those trained in nuclear engineering: Read, Ablaze, 156.
At their son’s bedside: Vera Toptunova, author interview, 2015.
On the morning of Thursday: Bergdahl, Voice of Ludmilla, 48–50.