The disaster is the second worst nuclear incident by radioactivity released, after the Chernobyl disaster and was regarded as the worst nuclear disaster in history until Chernobyl.[4] It is the only disaster classified as Level 6 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES),[5] which ranks by population impact, making it the third-worst after the two Level 7 events: the Chernobyl disaster, which resulted in the evacuation of 335,000 people, and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, which resulted in the evacuation of 154,000 people. At least 22 villages were exposed to radiation from the Kyshtym disaster, with a total population of around 10,000 people evacuated. Some were evacuated after a week, but it took almost two years for evacuations to occur at other sites.[6]
The disaster spread hot particles over more than 52,000 square kilometres (20,000sqmi), where at least 270,000 people lived.[7] Since Chelyabinsk-40 (later renamed Chelyabinsk-65 until 1994) was not marked on maps, the disaster was named after Kyshtym, the nearest known town.
Background
After World War II, the Soviet Union lagged behind the United States in the development of nuclear weapons, so its government started a rapid research and development program to produce a sufficient amount of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. The Mayak plant was built in haste between 1945 and 1948. Gaps in physicists’ knowledge about nuclear physics at the time made it difficult to judge the safety of many decisions.[citation needed]
Environmental concerns were secondary during the early development stage. Initially Mayak dumped high-level radioactive waste into a nearby river, which flowed to the river Ob, flowing farther downstream to the Arctic Ocean. All six reactors were on Lake Kyzyltash and used an open-cycle cooling system, discharging contaminated water directly back into the lake.[8] When Lake Kyzyltash quickly became contaminated, Lake Karachay was used for open-air storage, keeping the contamination a slight distance from the reactors but soon making Lake Karachay the "most-polluted spot on Earth".[9][10][11]
A storage facility for liquid nuclear waste was added around 1953. It consisted of steel tanks mounted in a concrete base, 8.2 meters (27ft) underground. Because of the high level of radioactivity, the waste was heating itself through decay heat (though a chain reaction was not possible). For that reason, a cooler was built around each bank, containing twenty tanks. Facilities for monitoring operation of the coolers and the content of the tanks were inadequate.[12] The accident involved waste from the sodium uranyl acetate process used by the early Soviet nuclear industry to recover plutonium from irradiated fuel.[13] The acetate process was a special process never used in the West; the idea is to dissolve the fuel in nitric acid, alter the oxidation state of the plutonium, and then add acetic acid and base. This would convert the uranium and plutonium into a solid acetate salt.[citation needed]
Explosion
In 1957, the Mayak plant was the site of a major disaster, one of many other such accidents, releasing more radioactive contamination than the Chernobyl disaster.[citation needed] An improperly stored underground tank of high-level liquid nuclear waste exploded, contaminating thousands of square kilometers of land, now known as the Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT).[14] The matter was covered up, and few either inside or outside the Soviet Union were aware of the full scope of the disaster until 1980.[citation needed]
Before the 1957 accident, much of the waste was dumped into the Techa River, which severely contaminated it and residents of dozens of riverside villages such as Muslyumovo, who relied on the river as their sole source of drinking, washing, and bathing water. After the 1957 accident, dumping in the Techa River officially ceased, but the waste material was left in convenient shallow lakes near the plant instead, of which 7 have been officially identified. Of particular concern is Lake Karachay, the closest lake to the plant (now notorious as "the most contaminated place on Earth"[9]) where roughly 4.4 exabecquerels of high-level liquid waste (75–90% of the total radioactivity released by Chernobyl) was dumped and concentrated in the shallow 45-hectare (0.45km2; 110-acre) lake[15] over several decades.
On September 29, 1957, Sunday, 4:22 pm, an explosion occurred within stainless steel containers located in a concrete canyon 8.2m (27 feet) deep used to store high-level waste. The explosion completely destroyed one of the containers, out of 14 total containers ("cans") in the canyon. The explosion was caused because the cooling system in one of the tanks at Mayak, containing about 70–80 tons of liquid radioactive waste, failed and was not repaired. The temperature in it started to rise, resulting in evaporation and a chemical explosion of the dried waste, consisting mainly of ammonium nitrate and acetates (see ammonium nitrate/fuel oil). The explosion was estimated to have had a force of at least 70 tons of TNT.[16] The explosion lifted a concrete slab weighing 160 tons, and a brick wall was destroyed in a building located 200 meters (660ft) from the explosion site. A tenth of the radioactive substances were lifted into the air. After the explosion, a column of smoke and dust rose to a kilometre high; the dust flickered with an orange-red light and settled on buildings and people. The rest of the waste discarded from the tank remained at the industrial site.[citation needed]
The workers at Ozyorsk and the Mayak plant did not immediately notice the contaminated streets, canteens, shops, schools, and kindergartens. In the first hours after the explosion, radioactive substances were brought into the city on the wheels of cars and buses, as well as on the clothes and shoes of industrial workers. After the blast at the facilities of the chemical plant, dosimetrists noted a sharp increase in the background radiation. Many industrial buildings, vehicles, concrete structures, and railways were contaminated. The most polluted were the central city street Lenin, especially when entering the city from the industrial site, and Shkolnaya street, where the management of the plant lived. Subsequently, the city administration imposed measures to stop the spreading of contamination. It was forbidden to enter the city from industrial sites in cars and buses. Site workers at the checkpoint got off the buses and passed the checkpoint. This requirement extended to everyone, regardless of rank and official position. Shoes were washed on flowing trays. The city was intentionally constructed to be upwind from the Mayak plant given the prevailing winds, so most of the radioactive material drifted away from, rather than towards, Ozyorsk.[17][18]
There were no immediate reported casualties as a result of the explosion, however, and the scope and nature of the disaster were covered up both internally and abroad.[19] Even as late as 1982, Los Alamos published a report investigating claims that the release was actually caused by a weapons test gone awry.[20] The disaster is estimated to have released 20MCi (800PBq) of radioactivity. Most of this contamination settled out near the site of the accident and contributed to the pollution of the Techa River, but a plume containing 2MCi (80PBq) of radionuclides spread out over hundreds of kilometers.[21] Previously contaminated areas within the affected area include the Techa river, which had previously received 2.75MCi (100PBq) of deliberately dumped waste, and Lake Karachay, which had received 120MCi (4,000PBq).[11]
In the next ten to eleven hours, the radioactive cloud moved towards the north-east, reaching 300–350km (190–220mi) from the accident. The fallout of the cloud resulted in long-term contamination of an area of 800 to 20,000km2 (300 to 8,000sqmi), depending on what contamination level is considered significant, primarily with caesium-137 and strontium-90.[11] The land area thus exposed to radioactive contamination was termed the "East Ural Radioactive Trace" (EURT). About 270,000 people inhabited this area. Fields, pastures, reservoirs, and forests in the area were polluted and rendered unsuitable for further use.[citation needed]
In a memo addressed to the Central Committee of the CPSU, Industry Minister E.P. Slavsky wrote: "Investigating the causes of the accident on the spot, the commission believes that the main culprits of this incident are the head of the radiochemical plant and the chief engineer of this plant, who committed a gross violation of the technological regulations for the operation of storage of radioactive solutions". In the order for the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, signed by E.P. Slavsky, it was noted that the reason for the explosion was insufficient cooling of the container, which allowed it to increase in temperature to the point its contents reacted with each other and exploded. This was later confirmed in experiments carried out by the Central Factory Laboratory (CPL). The director of the plant M. A. Demyanovich took all the blame for the accident, for which he was relieved of his duties as director.[18]
Because of the secrecy surrounding Mayak, the populations of affected areas were not initially informed of the accident. A week later, on 6 October 1957, an operation for evacuating 10,000 people from the affected area started, still without giving an explanation of the reasons for evacuation.
Vague reports of a "catastrophic accident" causing "radioactive fallout over the Soviet and many neighboring states" began appearing in the Western press between 13 and 14 April 1958, and the first details emerged in the Viennese paper Die Presse on 17 March 1959.[20][22] But it was only eighteen years later, in 1976, that Soviet dissident Zhores Medvedev made the nature and extent of the disaster known to the world.[23][24] Medvedev's description of the disaster in the New Scientist was initially derided by Western nuclear industry sources, but the core of his story was soon confirmed by Professor Lev Tumerman, former head of the Biophysics Laboratory at the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow.[25]
The true number of fatalities remains uncertain because radiation-induced cancer is very often clinically indistinguishable from any other cancer, and its incidence rate can be measured only through epidemiological studies. Recent epidemiological studies suggest that around 49 to 55 cancer deaths among riverside residents can be associated with radiation exposure.[26] This would include the effects of all radioactive releases into the river, 98% of which happened long before the 1957 accident, but it would not include the effects of the airborne plume that was carried north-east.[27] The area closest to the accident produced 66 diagnosed cases of chronic radiation syndrome, providing the bulk of the data about this condition.[3]
To reduce the spread of radioactive contamination after the accident, contaminated soil was excavated and stockpiled in fenced enclosures that were called "graveyards of the earth".[28] The Soviet government in 1968 disguised the EURT area by creating the East Ural Nature Reserve, which prohibited any unauthorised access to the affected area.
According to Gyorgy,[29] who invoked the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to the relevant Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) files, the CIA had known of the 1957 Mayak accident since 1959, but kept it secret to prevent adverse consequences for the fledgling American nuclear industry.[30] Starting in 1989, several years after the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviet government gradually declassified documents pertaining to the incident at Mayak.[31][32]
Current situation
The level of radiation in Ozyorsk, at about 0.1mSv a year,[33] is harmless,[34] but a 2002 study showed the Mayak nuclear workers and the Techa riverside population are still affected.[27]
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases, where their presence is unintended or undesirable.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation is an officially designated exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. It is also commonly known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the 30-Kilometre Zone, or simply The Zone.
The Mayak Production Association is one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing a reprocessing plant. The closest settlements are Ozyorsk to the northwest and Novogornyi to the south.
The Chernobyl disaster began on 26 April 1986 with the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR, close to the border with the Byelorussian SSR, in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The initial emergency response and subsequent mitigation efforts involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18billion roubles—roughly US$68billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, and the costliest disaster in human history, costing an estimated US$700 billion.
Ozyorsk or Ozersk is a closed city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It has a population of 82,164 as of the 2010 census.
Kyshtym is a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern slopes of the Southern Ural Mountains 90 kilometers (56 mi) northwest of Chelyabinsk, near the town of Ozyorsk. Population: 38,942 (2010 Russian census); 41,929 (2002 Census); 42,852 (1989 Soviet census); 36,000 (1970).
Lake Karachay, sometimes spelled Karachai or Karachaj, was a small lake in the southern Ural mountains in central Russia. Starting in 1951, the Soviet Union used Karachay as a dumping site for radioactive waste from Mayak, the nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility, located near the town of Ozyorsk. Today the lake is completely infilled, acting as "a near-surface permanent and dry nuclear waste storage facility."
Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and industry and is an isotope of concern in fallout from nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents.
Since the mid-20th century, plutonium in the environment has been primarily produced by human activity. The first plants to produce plutonium for use in cold war atomic bombs were at the Hanford nuclear site, in Washington, and Mayak nuclear plant, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Over a period of four decades, "both released more than 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment – twice the amount expelled in the Chernobyl disaster in each instance".
This article compares the radioactivity release and decay from the Chernobyl disaster with various other events which involved a release of uncontrolled radioactivity.
K-431 was a Soviet nuclear-powered submarine that had a reactor accident on 10 August 1985. It was commissioned on 30 September 1965. The 1985 explosion occurred during refueling of the submarine at Chazhma Bay, Dunay, Vladivostok. There were ten fatalities and 49 other people suffered radiation injuries. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters".
The Techa is an eastward river on the eastern flank of the southern Ural Mountains noted for its nuclear contamination. It is 243 kilometres (151 mi) long, and its basin covers 7,600 square kilometres (2,900 sq mi). It begins by the once-secret nuclear processing town of Ozyorsk about 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Chelyabinsk and flows east then northeast to the small town of Dalmatovo to flow into the mid-part of the Iset, a tributary of the Tobol. Its basin is close to and north of the Miass, longer than these rivers apart from the Tobol.
These are lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents.
Lake Karachay was a small natural lake in eastern Russia. It is best known for its use as a dumping ground by the Soviet Union's Mayak nuclear weapons laboratory and fuel reprocessing plant. A string of accidents and disasters at the Mayak facility has contaminated much of the surrounding the area with highly radioactive waste. In the 1960s, the lake began to dry out and its area had dropped from 0.5 km2 in 1951 to 0.15 km2 by the end of 1993. In 1968, following a drought in the region, the wind carried 185 PBq (5 MCi) of radioactive dust away from the dried bed of the lake, irradiating half a million people. Lake Karachay has been described as the "most polluted spot on Earth" by the Worldwatch Institute.
Nuclear labor issues exist within the international nuclear power industry and the nuclear weapons production sector worldwide, impacting upon the lives and health of laborers, itinerant workers and their families.
The Chernobyl disaster remains the major and most detrimental nuclear catastrophe which completely altered the radioactive background of the Northern Hemisphere. It happened in April 1986 on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The catastrophe led to the increase of radiation in nearly one million times in some parts of Europe and North America compared to the pre-disaster state. Air, water, soils, vegetation and animals were contaminated to a varying degree. Apart from Ukraine and Belarus as the worst hit areas, adversely affected countries included Russia, Austria, Finland and Sweden. The full impact on the aquatic systems, including primarily adjacent valleys of Pripyat river and Dnieper river, are still unexplored.
↑ Higginbotham, Adam (2019). Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster. Simon & Schuster. p.45. ISBN9781501134616.
1 2 "Accident at the lighthouse in 1957". IK-PTZ. Retrieved 22 September 2021. •Volobuev, P.V.; etal. (2000). Восточно-Уральский радиоактивный след: проблемы реабилитации населения и территорий Свердловской области[East Ural radioactive trace: Problems of rehabilitation of the population and territories of the Sverdlovsk region] (in Russian). Yekaterinburg: Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. ISBN5-7691-1021-X.
Medvedev, Zhores A. (1980). Nuclear disaster in the Urals translated by George Saunders. 1st Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN978-0-394-74445-2. (c1979)
Pollock, Richard (1978). "Soviets Experience Nuclear Accident". Critical Mass Journal.
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