A coffin made of rubble and debris and a man stuck in the belly of the beast forever.
Chernobyl’s first victim reveals new details about just how catastrophic the disaster was.
The Chernobyl disaster is considered the world's worst nuclear accident in
history. The Chernobyl plant, located near Pripyat in modern-day Ukraine,
suffered a core explosion and partial meltdown on April 26, 1986.
As a result, radioactive material leached into the environment. Experts estimate
that up to 50 people died during the initial explosion, with many more suffering radiation
burns and other health ramifications. Many others died later according to Britannica.
The International Atomic Energy Agency adds that 28 firemen and workers that were part
of the initial response and cleanup also died within three months of the disaster.
Following the accident, a lot of secrecy surrounded the event,
and the Soviet Union made clear efforts to conceal the disaster's magnitude for as
long as possible. Recently released documents revealed just how extensive the cover-up was.
The documents don’t just include the number of deaths that were covered up,
it also revealed how the government waited 36 hours to order evacuation, and just how badly
the soil and water in the area were affected. Just a year after the accident, as Reuters reported,
the KGB, was said to have used fake samples so the results wouldn't be so alarming.
While we may never know precisely how many people died during the initial explosion or
after as a direct result of it, we do know the name of the first person to lose their
life in the disaster: Valery Khodemchuk, an experienced nuclear mechanical engineer.
Friday, April 25, 1986, started as a regular day. The workers at the high power channel reactor
RBMK 4 inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were scheduled to perform a routine shutdown.
The shutdown, according to the World Nuclear Association, was part of a system to check that
the turbines and pumps would be able to keep the reactor stable in case the plant ever lost power.
Things went wrong almost from the beginning. For starters,
the test was delayed by almost 10 hours, which meant the night shift employees had
to take over. Not only were they not properly trained to perform the test,
but they also had no clear understanding of the safety protocols to be employed.
Workers didn’t wait the required time to get the core temperature to a safe
level before attempting the test so they tried to get the power back up
too quickly after the shutdown. Once the reactor was shut down at 1:23:04 a.m.,
there was no way back, and the disaster at Chernobyl was inevitable, according to CNET.
At no point was there any communication with workers in other sections of the plant to
alert them of possible danger, either. Valery Khodemchuk was waiting in the turbine room of
RBMK 4 while the test was conducted to report back on the overall performance.
At 1:23:45 a.m., a massive steam explosion took place in reactor 4, leading to a chain reaction.
Khodemchuk, who was in the main pump halls waiting for the test to end, was the first person killed.
Reports vary on whether or not he died immediately. Another worker,
Vladimir Shashenok, died as a result of direct radiation exposure while trying
to rescue Khodemchuk. As reported in 1986 by the Los Angeles Times,
Shashenok was pulled out of the plant and able to say, "There, Valery," before dying.
Valery Khodemchuk, however, would never come out. The explosions in RBMK 4 caused a massive fire
and destroyed the building. Khodemchuk's body would remain forever buried under the debris,
according to the LA Times. At the time, Soviet news outlet Pravda reported that:
“[The reactor] would become his coffin."
This quickly became a reality soon after as the reactor was encased in
deep layers of cement called a sarcophagus to contain the radiation and prevent leaking
per the LA Times. The World Nuclear Association, also known as the WNA,
later reported that the disaster at Chernobyl was the result of:
"A flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel."
Additionally, the WNA also stated that at the time of the disaster, 5% of the radioactive material
that was in the reactor's core escaped into the environment and impacted several parts of Europe.
In 2021, 35 years after the Chernobyl explosion, the radiation levels were
finally low enough that people could approach the reactor to place a small monument and plaque
where the control room once stood. According to History of Yesterday, the plaque reads:
"The body of Valery Khodemchuks was never recovered, therefore
it remains buried for eternity under reactor 4."