48 Hours a Day

“Let's talk about what happened this morning. ”

After paving the way for a few questions, Besonova gradually entered the main topic.

Gatorov, who had noticed the three players not far from home, had seen that the group was headed by the three men on the other side of the room, who appeared to be acting as jurors and exchanging opinions from time to time, although their voices were small and there was a distance between the parties, and Gatorov had no idea what they were talking about.

So the deputy engineer had to take his eyes back and put his mind back a few hours ago.

“On the morning of the 26th, we were working on a safety experiment.” Gatorov recalls that "the contents of the experiment must have been clear to you, because today in January, the director of the Brekhanov plant reported the test procedure to the Institute of Hydropower Engineering...”

However, he was brutally interrupted by Besonova when he just said, “Comrade Gatorov, you just need to tell us everything in detail and accurately, as to what we already know, what we don't know, and don't bother you, and if you could explain the principles involved, Dr. Yevlem would also like to know what happened in this accident. ”

“Okay.”

Even though Besonova's story made Gatorov feel a little strange, and he didn't understand why experts in acute radiation disease had to listen to accident analysis, he promised to come down and sort out his thoughts, and he continued, "Anyway, we had a safety experiment to do, scheduled for April 25, before the reactor shut down for maintenance, and you know, the reactor always needed regular maintenance, and we could do a very simple safety experiment on this occasion.

“Chernobyl employs a graphite slow boiling water reactor, under the influence of electricity, which continuously fills the reactor with cold water and generates steam-driven turbine power, while taking hot wastewater away from the reactor to ensure that the core is not melted. As you can see, pumps play an important role in this process, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that pumps are functioning properly.

“In sudden emergencies, even when all the power in the nuclear power plant is cut off, we still have a backup diesel generator that can power the pump, but it takes a short time for the diesel generator to start up, which means we have to keep the pump running for a short time. ”

Gatorov tried to be as detailed as possible to ensure that Dr. Yevrem, an outsider, could also understand.

“This safety experiment is designed to solve this problem, and we consider using the inertia of the turbine, because steam is still being produced and the turbine is still spinning when the power goes out, so that we can generate electricity, which can help us to get through this.

“At 1 p.m., we reduced the power of Reactor 4 to 1600 megawatts, shut down a steam turbine, and at 2 p.m., disconnected the emergency reactor core cooling system and multiple forced cycle circuits in preparation for a safety experiment designed by Chief Engineer Fuming, but at that time we received a call from Kiev saying that there had been an accident at a small power station over there, and Kiev was now under electrical tension, asking us to push back the shutdown time of the reactor.

“What can I do? The experiment had to be suspended," Gatorov stalled, “and I went home to sleep for a few hours at this time, and then came back at 11: 00 p.m., and an hour earlier I was given permission to continue to reduce the power by contacting Yuri Tregub, then the reactor's shift chief, and Akimov, who was to succeed him, and I made it clear that they were asked to continue to reduce the power to 700 to 1,000 megawatts as required by the experiment.

“After the assignment, I left the control room, toured around, watched the situation before the blackout, and returned to the control room at 12: 30, where there were Akimov, Toptunov, Stolyarchuk, Tregub, who was supposed to be off duty, and a few other interns and someone else.

“When I discovered that the reactor's power had dropped to 30 megawatts, well below the 700 megawatts required for the experiment, I asked Akimov what was going on, and he said that shutting down the local automatic control system and changing it to manual control should solve the problem, so I approved him to continue boosting his power.

“And then I left the control room again, and I looked at the turbine, and when I came back, the reactor power went up to about 200 megawatts, and we finally decided to do the experiment at that power, and I called in all the experimenters at the time to brief them, and I got them ready to go back to their posts.

“The safety experiment started at 1: 23: 04 and everything went smoothly, and all the operations were carried out according to regulations, and I was busy reading on the research instrument, and then I heard Akimov say shutting down the reactor. After that, he reached out and pressed the emergency power drop button. Soon after that, I heard the explosion. ”

“What happened?” Besonova asked.

“That's what I want to know," Gatorov said, "I left the control room immediately after the explosion and inspected the situation outside. I didn't know why. The emergency water tank of the protection and control system exploded. The tank was huge and had 110 cubic meters. Such an explosion would tip over the roof and, if it was serious, blow up the entire reactor unit. But the reactor below was still intact. I ordered the injection of water into the reactor for the first time to keep the reactor stable, and then joined others in the rescue.

“Around three o'clock, I received a call to go to the Civil Defence Headquarters to report the accident to the Director of the Brekhanov plant, and then came to the Pripyati Medical Centre for medical treatment due to illness, which is all I know. ”

“The reactor is safe. Are you sure? Comrade Gatorov. ”

“Yes, I'm sure.” The deputy chief engineer was sure, "I inspected around the reactor after the incident. ”

“Radiation? ”

“Gorbachenko's radiometer showed a background radiation value of 1,000 microns per second at the time. ”

“It doesn't sound too good. ”

“Yes, there was undoubtedly a nuclear leak there, but fortunately it's still under control and we're going to get over it.” Gatorov Road.

“Yeah, but as far as I can tell, the 3.6 roentgens happen to be the upper limit of a small radiometer.” Besonova coldly threw out the problem, "What, the nuclear plant doesn't have a larger range of measuring instruments? ”

Gatorov silenced for a moment, "Yes, we had a measuring instrument measuring 1,000 roentgens, but it was locked in a safe and then buried under the wreckage of the building. But there shouldn't be much deviation in the measurements, after all, it just blew up a tank. ”