Chernobyl E-Book

Johannes Grotzky

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 204

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Everything that was published years after the Chernobyl catastrophe could refer to a great deal of substantial material and facts in retrospect. But during the catastrophe, the reporting was partly characterized by ignorance, a lack of facts and the undermining of information, by speculations, fears and rumors. And that is exactly what this book is about: day by day reports as things were happening, the struggle for information, the development of glasnost in the Soviet media and a look back from today´s perspective. Overall, this book is a small contribution to the realistic handling of journalism in crises at a time when there was neither the internet, nor mobile phones, nor e-mails or satellite television. And even free telephone connections were not allowed for Western correspondents in the Soviet Union.

Leseprobe

Johannes GROTZKY (*1949)

Studied Slavonic and Balkan languages, History of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in Munich and Zagreb. 1983-1994 Correspondent in Moscow and Vienna (for Southeast Europe). 2002-2014 Radio Director of the Bavarian Broadcast Corporation (BR) in Munich. Honorary Professor for Eastern European Studies, Culture and Media at the University of Bamberg.

Table of Contents

WHY THIS BOOK?

CHRONOLOGY OF THE DISASTER

BURDENS FOR THE FUTURE

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

THE YEAR 1986

IN THE PRESS – NOT A WORD

THE SILENCE CONTINUES

DECEPTION

FIRST REACTIONS

CRITICISM OF THE WEST

FIRST FILM REPORT ON TELEVISION

LETTER OF THE WEST GERMAN AMBASSADOR IN MOSCOW (I)

THE TIME OF THE EXPLOSION

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

HEAD OF IAEA CORRECTS MOSCOW

CRITICISM AND REVERSAL OF THE INFORMATION POLICY

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR

REASSURANCE CAMPAIGN OF THE MEDIA

LETTER OF THE WEST GERMAN AMBASSADOR IN MOSCOW (II)

FIRST TV REPORT ON SITE

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES

GORBACHEV DEMANDS CONSEQUENCES

HELP FROM THE USA

OPEN REACTIONS

ARMAND HAMMER

THIRTY THOUSAND SQUARE METERS DISINFECTED

A WAR ON DIFFERENT FRONT LINES

ADVICE AGAINST RADIOACTIVITY

ACADEMICIAN VELIKHOV ABOUT THE CATASTROPHE

FIRST INVESTIGATION REPORT

A ROCK STAR PRAYS FOR SALVATION

THE FIGHT WILL CONTINUE

RESPONSIBLE PERSONS NAMED

GORBACHEV'S RECKONING

MYTHS AND REALITY

NOT MUCH CRITICISM FROM YOUNG PEOPLE

READERS' DISCUSSION ON NUCLEAR ENERGY

TV DOCUMENTARY RAISES HIGH EXPECTATIONS

AMBIGUITIES REMAIN

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHERNOBYL

HEROIC BATTLE ON THE SCREEN

ANNUAL REVIEW

THE YEAR 1987

"WARNING" NEW DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT CHERNOBYL

JUDGMENT IN THE CHERNOBYL TRIAL

COMMENT ON THE JUDGMENT IN THE CHERNOBYL TRIAL

THE YEAR 1988

TWO YEARS AFTER CHERNOBYL

VISIT TO CHERNOBYL

THE YEAR 1989

GORBACHEV IN CHERNOBYL

CHERNOBYL – THREE YEARS AFTER

30 YEARS LATER – LOOKING BACK

POSTSCRIPT

WHY THIS BOOK?

The international book market is inundated with publications dealing with the disaster of the Soviet nuclear power plant of Chernobyl in 1986.

The Hollis catalogue of the Harvard Library – which includes 79 libraries – is one of the largest book collections in the world with a stock of 16.8 million volumes. This catalogue lists almost 118,480 publications1 on the Chernobyl disaster.

These publications are of all media types (books, journal articles, dissertations, online-based materials, videos, conference papers, lectures) in more than 40 languages, including Russian. In addition to these publications there are another 5,608 titles under the Ukrainian name "Chornobyl".2 Basically, every conceivable aspect of the disaster is discussed from every angle. Almost all the facts are known with a few exceptions.3 The people responsible for the disaster are named and held accountable. The victims who lost their lives as a result of this catastrophe and those who will suffer the consequences of the contamination all their lives have received public sympathy. But no one can undo the terrible damage to life and limb.

So, why am I presenting this little volume on Chernobyl now when everything that matters has been published? Everything that was published after the Chernobyl catastrophe could refer to a lot of information and knowledge in retrospect. Here, the same rule applies as to war reporting. Real reporting only takes place after the end of the war, when all sources are accessible and all sides have been heard. But as in every war, there was also live reporting during the Chernobyl catastrophe, not knowing what happened in detail. This reporting was partly characterized by ignorance, a lack of information and the undermining of information, by speculations, fears and rumors. And that is exactly what this book is about.

As a correspondent in Moscow from 1983 to 1989 I was able to experience the agony under the ailing Secretary-Generals Andropov and Chernenko as well as the start of a risky reform policy under Mikhail Gorbachev. After taking office in March 1985, Gorbachev in particular attempted to develop the Soviet Union into a competitive model vis-à-vis the Western world by demanding more openness (glasnost) and a restructuring of the economy and society (perestroika).

The Chernobyl catastrophe occurred during the opening process of this reform policy – at the end of his first year in office. In spite of the new openness, we correspondents in Moscow – as well as the entire world – learned for almost two days nothing about the disaster in the fourth reactor unit of Chernobyl, taking place in the night from April 25-26, 1986. In West European countries increasing radioactivity had been measured already. It clearly came from the Soviet Union. Radio stations from Germany called me in Moscow and wanted to know more. I remember my first reaction when I said: If this was really a radioactive explosion within the Soviet Union, then Gorbachev would be the first to go public because of his policy of glasnost.

But nothing happened and therefore we correspondents had nothing to report. Only two days later, on April 28, 1986 at 21:02 (9:02 p.m.) Moscow time, the Soviet news agency TASS4 published in the Russian and English service an identical message consisting of four short sentences:

An accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was admitted, during which a reactor had been damaged.

Measures had been taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident.

Help had been given to those affected.

A government commission had been set up.

The documentary part of this book begins with this TASS report. Further on, the book consists of radio reports and commentaries which I wrote as a Moscow correspondent from April 28, 1986 to April 26, 1989, the third anniversary of the catastrophe. The West German Broadcasting Company WDR was the main provider of my reports to almost 60 radio stations in West Germany. This company was responsible for the Moscow studio within the ARD5, the network of public radio- and TV-stations in West Germany. I have also added to this book some of my articles for the Hamburg weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT6. This weekly did not have its own correspondent in Moscow at that time. During this period – two years after the accident – I made my only trip to the exploded reactor unit of Chernobyl and the contaminated site of Pripyat, the former settlement of the Chernobyl workers.

These reports show in the beginning the helplessness of us journalists – Russian and foreign. The reason was simple. Many of the responsible personnel for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant falsified or even embezzled information intended for the central government and the Communist Party in Moscow. But after a while, glasnost then prevailed dramatically and a new type of investigative Soviet journalism emerged that traced the drama of Chernobyl in all its facets. This development can also be seen in contemporary reports.

In this book, the documentary part of contemporary reports is preceded by a brief chronological overview of the events as they can be written in retrospect and with the knowledge of many sources available today. This is followed by another brief chapter on the burdens that will continue to affect the contaminated areas and their inhabitants in the coming decades. With a shiver of horror, the reader will notice that today so-called "eye-opening" adventure tours into the "post-apocalyptic world" of Chernobyl and Pripyat are offered from Kiev. The book ends with the text of an almost 45-minute television conversation that the ARD-alpha educational channel recorded with me on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the catastrophe. In this text one can understand both the uncertain assessment of the first days in April 1986 as well as the monstrous extent of this disaster and its consequences until today.

Overall, this book is a small contribution to the realistic handling of journalism in crises at a time when there was neither the internet, nor mobile phones, nor even e-mails or satellite television. My own research was limited for weeks to getting telephone contacts with people in the affected areas. There was no free telephone extension and the interlocutors on the other end of the phone were taped by "the services", as were we correspondents. So-called "informed circles" on the Soviet side also often proved to be chatterboxes who belittled the horror of the catastrophe.

The situation in Moscow was particularly tense for our families living with us. They sometimes experienced dramatic exaggerations via Western radio stations on short-wave transmitters or from Western newspapers7 that arrived in Moscow days later. Occasionally they even wrote about thousands of alleged deaths that were "suspected" in the Soviet Union on the basis of measurement data in the West.

In this context, the letters of the German ambassador in Moscow to his compatriots living there are also interesting testimonies to contemporary history, which are also documented here thirty years later.

As correspondents from Moscow, we had to assert ourselves against hysteria in numerous Western tabloid media, which – contrary to better knowledge – spoke of an alleged death cloud over Europe and spread numbers of two thousand and more deaths as so-called established facts.

It was impossible for us as correspondents to prove the opposite. On the other hand, we could not confirm such assertions. 8

The headlines9 of that time demonstrate these irresponsible speculations as well as the challenge of reacting responsibly as journalists.

The reader must take into account that this is a journalistic book. The sources cited come from the current day's work, interviews, press conferences, background discussions, television and radio programs, as well as the daily and weekly newspapers from the years I worked as a foreign radio correspondent in the Soviet Union.

Newspapers, agencies and television programs cited on the reporting date are from the very same day.10

1 Retrieved August 4, 2019 under https://hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,Chernobyl&tab=everything&search_scope=everything&vid=HVD2

2 Retrieved August 4, 2019 under https://hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,Chornobyl&tab=everything&search_scope=everything&vid=HVD2&offset=0

3 It is still unclear today what contaminated material is really located under the ruins of the fourth reactor , which is sealed as a sarcophagus, what long-term effects this will have, and how future generations will be able to handle this dangerous radioactive heritage.

4Telegrafnoe Agenstvo Sovietskogo Sojusa (News Agency of the Soviet Union).

5 Working group of public broadcasters of the Federal Republic of Germany (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland).

6 These additional contributions are mentioned in footnotes.

7 Source of the newspaper illustration TODAY retrieved August 4, 2019 under http://mhill46-holdthefrontpage.blogspot.com/2011/08/nuclear-nightmare.html

8 The headline of the German Tabloid BILD, retrieved July 21, 2020 under https://www.mediummagazin.de/1986-2011-die-katastrophen-in-tschernobyl-und-japan-im-spiegel-der-tagespresse/

9 Source of the newspaper illustration DAILY EXPRESS retrieved August 4, 2019 under https://www.forgottenchernobyl.net/chernobyl-coverage-in-daily-express-from-30-april-1986 (page →).

10 Articles and illustrations from the Soviet press about the Chernobyl catastrophe one can find under https://pripyat-city.ru/publications/169-pressa-ob-avarii-chast-ii.html, retrieved July 22, 2020.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE DISASTER

Until now, the Chernobyl disaster has been analyzed up to the minute, even to the second, by proponents11 and opponents12 and neutral observers13 of nuclear energy.

We therefore know that on April 26, 1986, at one o'clock, twenty-three minutes and four seconds at night, a performance test was carried out in the fourth reactor unit. During this test the experts at the power station lost control. An emergency shutdown had failed. A fire broke out in the radioactive core of the reactor. At exactly 01:23:48 a.m. the reactor exploded, i.e. not even one minute after the start of the test. This alone makes it clear how overwhelmed the responsible personnel in the reactor unit were. Not only had they made numerous wrong decisions, they also did not share information about the beginning catastrophe in time and completely.

The Soviet Union was not prepared in any way whatsoever for the onset of this catastrophe, which had been the biggest that had ever occurred in a nuclear power station worldwide. Following the registration in Sweden, Denmark and Finland of highly elevated radioactive measurements, the Soviet leadership had only a four-line message disseminated by the official news agency TASS confirming the accident succinctly.

The then Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev, founder of the politics of glasnost and perestroika, let almost three weeks pass before he himself commented on the disaster on television. But the Soviet Union – and after the collapse of the USSR later Ukraine and Belarus – would still have decades to work on overcoming this catastrophe.

A remarkable document was found many years later in the Stasi documents of the GDR, i.e. the State Security of East Germany.14 Officially, the government of the GDR – as well as Western states – had received no reliable information about the accident and its consequences. But on June 14, 1986, a good six weeks after the catastrophe, an unofficial collaborator for the Stasi, based in Moscow, under the code name "Werner Lorenz" gave a confidential, very detailed report. In the evening between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. he met with Major Wohlleben of the GDR State Security, who made a stenographic transcript of the spoken conversation.

This transcript, four pages in typewriter print, is about a meeting of the GDR Minister of Energy Wolfgang Mitzinger (*1932) with his Soviet colleague Anatoli Mayorets (1929-2016) and the chairman of the Soviet Committee for Atomic Energy, Andranik Petrosyants (1906-2005). With astonishing openness, for which Petrosyants later also became known in the West, this report already explains the exact sequence of the catastrophe, the misconduct of those responsible and the deficits in the manufacture of nuclear reactors in the USSR.

There is already information in this report, which only became known to the public months later. During this conversation, the Soviet side attached importance to the fact that Chernobyl was purely an accident due to a lack of technical mastery of the operational procedures, but not an act of sabotage. Because of the explosive nature of the information shared at this meeting, a copy of two facsimiles are documented here.15 The document is titled as: “Conversation between the Secretaries of energy of the GDR and the Soviet Union about the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl”. The first facsimile shows the date and time of the meeting between the secret informant and the major of the Stasi. Further on, it confirms that the informant in Moscow provided information about the Chernobyl accident for the GDR government. The second facsimile is the beginning of the protocol which is documented in translation.

(Page 1)

Annex to the Meeting Report with the informant

"Werner Lorenz" of June 14, 1986.

Political-operational notes on the accident

at the

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

In a meeting held on June 3, 1986 between the Minister of Coal and Energy, General Mitzinger, and the Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR, Gen. Mayorets, and the Chairman of the State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy of the USSR, Gen. Prof. Petrosyants, an internal meeting held in Moscow, the Soviet side informed about the causes, circumstances and conditions of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that occurred on April 26, 1986.

– In the night from April 25-26, 1986, the scheduled shutdown operation was carried out in order to implement prophylactic status condition checks of unit 4 (1,000 MW electrical power; 3,000 MB thermal power).

During the shutdown of this unit the behavior of the plant in the event of a failure of the electrical power supply from the public grid for emergency power supply was tested deviating from the normal operation (determination of the extent to which the turbine / generator run-out energy for the operation of the main circulation pumps for cooling / heat dissipation from the reactor is sufficient for a short time until the emergency power supply is switched on).

At this time the reactor had a thermal power of more than 200 MWth (this corresponds to approx. 7% of the nominal thermal power) and only 3 of the 6 circulating pumps were in operation. During the execution of this test program, local overheating occurred in the fuel zone of the reactor (cooling was obviously not sufficient), which was noticed by the reactor operator.

(Page 2)

The reactor operator then switched on the main circulating pumps which were not in operation with the aim of increasing the water flow for cooling/heat dissipation in the reactor.

This resulted in an uncontrollable increase in the output of the reactor, which was not controlled by the control system. The control ability of the reactor was restricted by clamping control rods.

On the part of the Soviet experts, it cannot be ruled out that the control rods may get stuck in the protective and safety drive system of the reactor due to the lack of guide rails.

Under these operating conditions (overheating of the fuel zone, uncontrolled power increase, reactivation of main circulating pumps), an explosive hydrogen-oxygen mixture (so-called oxyhydrogen gas) was formed and thus a high overpressure was generated, causing the reactor to explode and result in a fire.

A large part of the radioactive material was thrown up out of the reactor and released.

The Chernobyl NPP16 does not have a safety containment (containment or pressure vessel) to withstand radioactive nuclides from the environment for such accidents.

Around 100,000 people had to be evacuated in the vicinity of the NPP.

So far, about 30 deaths have occurred.

The main cause of the serious accident in the Chernobyl NPP was given by the Soviet side as the lack of control of the reactor operation under the given conditions. The investigations showed that acts of sabotage can be excluded.

The damaged reactor was or is provided with a hermetic seal.

To prevent overheating as a result of the radioactive decay processes that are still taking place, cooling and ventilation systems are being set up in the emergency area.

(Page 3)

The risk of groundwater contamination was eliminated by reinforcing the foundations.

It is planned to restart the 1,000 MW units 1 and 2 in the Chernobyl NPP in October 1986.

When fighting the accident, robot technology from the NSW (e.g. dump trucks, tractors) with remote control were used.

According to statements from the Soviet side, this technology has not proved itself in terms of reliability.

According to the results of the investigations to date, there were a number of deficiencies and favorable conditions with regard to the occurrence and control of the accident.

To this end, conclusions capable of generalization are being drawn up by the responsible Soviet organs and institutions.

In this context, the following fundamental problems were pointed out by the Soviet side:

– The carrying out of experiments or tests in nuclear power plants must be thoroughly prepared on a scientific and technical basis and coordinated with the higher-level state and supervising bodies.

(In the case of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the test program was only prepared and implemented in-house.)

– The order, safety, discipline and qualification of personnel must be raised to a significantly higher level and enforced according to military principles.

– Greater attention should be paid to the psychological preparation of the operating personnel for the control of disturbances and accidents in order to prevent panic-like reactions and behavior in the future.

– The forces and means for special fire fighting must meet the special requirements in the nuclear power plant, i. e. also in the case of melting of the nuclear fuel zone.

(At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the operational fire brigade was not sufficiently qualified for this purpose).

The information systems must be fully functional in the event of hazards, malfunctions, accidents and fires and meet the requirements in terms of what needs to be done and when.

(In the event of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, for example, the Minister of Energy and Electrification of the USSR was informed belatedly that Reactor 4 was no longer fully operational.

(Page 4)

In order to improve the bilateral exchange of information between the USSR and the GDR on experiences and findings in the operation of nuclear power plants, it is planned to conclude an agreement between the ministries involved.

To this end, special collectives are to be formed with the involvement of experts.

– The Soviet side is striving to form an international intervention force of the socialist countries to combat nuclear power plant accidents and eliminate the consequences of accidents.

– Scientific and technical research in the field of nuclear safety at nuclear power stations should be stepped up.

(Note: Internally, the Chairman of the State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy of the USSR, Gen. Prof. Petrosyants, expressed that e.g. scientific-technical investigations are necessary for the safety of interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, taking into account possible changes in the condition of the materials used. At the present time, no reliable statement can be made as to whether it is still possible to transport the nuclear fuel assemblies after a long period of storage.)

The Soviet side expressed the view that after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, no cuts will be made in the use of nuclear energy for power generation (electricity and heat) in the USSR.

Further investigations are being carried out in the USSR on the use of the graphite-moderated pressure-tube generator – as in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – and the associated safety systems.

(Note: According to GDR experts, this reactor type represents a technical interim solution, taking into account the lower economic and technical costs compared to other reactor types of this power size. One of the reasons for this technical interim solution is that the production capacities for the manufacture of reactor pressure vessels in the USSR are in a bottleneck.)

(signature)

Wohlleben, Major

After Chernobyl, in the then Soviet Union had occurred what has never happened in the past:

The public began a critical debate on nuclear energy. However, the accelerated expansion of nuclear power was continued by Soviet economic planning.

In addition, experts had to eliminate existing and identifiable risks that had been demonstrated in the previous practice of Soviet nuclear power plants. This was particularly true of the Chernobyl reactor type, which had not been rebuilt since the accident. The concrete consequence of this was the decision that the two additionally planned reactor units at Chernobyl would no longer be completed. Finally, the nuclear power plant of Chernobyl has been shut down totally.

In Smolensk and Kursk, according to initial reports, two other nuclear power units were shut down, using the same technology as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. All 14 units of the same type dating from the 1970s had to be modernized and equipped with additional safety features. Further reactor units at the Beloyarsk and Novovoronezh nuclear power plants were allegedly being prepared for decommissioning. The only nuclear power plant operated in Armenia in the immediate vicinity of the capital Yerevan was completely shut down after the severe earthquake in 1988.

A previously unthinkable information policy for the Soviet Union had been implemented: Nuclear power plants were opened for regular visits; company representatives, training facilities, public organizations – all of them were now to receive on-the-spot instruction on nuclear energy. An information center for nuclear energy was established in Moscow, and public discussions on nuclear energy were held regularly in a specialized institute.

Nevertheless, these measures were not sufficient to minimize the horrors of Chernobyl and, at the same time, to persuade the population toward the future development concerning the use of nuclear energy.

On the third anniversary of the catastrophe the party newspaper Pravda devoted a whole page to the problems of radioactive contamination, which is still effective. For illustration purposes, the newspaper printed three maps from the Chernobyl catchment area, in which detailed measurements of the contamination were recorded. In a conclusion, the Soviet minister for environmental issues Yuri Izrael (1930-2014) stated that "the radioactive contamination of the environment on a considerable territory will still remain a serious technical and social problem".17

For the first time in three years, Mikhail Gorbachev also ventured to Chernobyl, where Gorbachev – in white protective clothing – had the shift supervisor explain the work sequence to him in the first reactor unit of the nuclear power plant. The party leader always interrupted when safety issues were at stake. "Did the new automatic system really work? Is it now possible to rule out errors?"