The Kyshtym accident of 1957 is not an incident related to nuclear energy, which makes it difficult to call it nuclear. It is called Kyshtym because the tragedy occurred in a secret city, which was a closed facility. Kyshtym is the locality that is located closest to the disaster site.
The authorities managed to keep secret this accident on a global scale. Information about the disaster became available to the country's population only at the end of the 1980s, that is, 30 years after what happened. Moreover, the true scale of the disaster became known only in recent years.
Technical accident
Often the Kyshtym accident of 1957 is associated with a nuclear disaster. But in reality this is not entirely true. The accident happened on September 29, 1957 in the Sverdlovsk region, in a closed city, which at that time was called Chelyabinsk-40. Today it is known as Ozersk.
It is noteworthy that in Chelyabinsk-40 there was a chemical accident, not a nuclear one. The largest Soviet chemical enterprise, Mayak, was located in this city. The production of this plant implied the presence of large volumes of radioactive waste stored at the plant. The accident occurred precisely with this chemical waste.
In the days of the Soviet Union, the name of this city was classified, which is why the name of the nearest settlement, which was Kyshtym, was used to indicate the place of the accident.
Cause of the disaster
Industrial waste was stored in special steel containers placed in tanks that were dug into the ground. All containers were equipped with a cooling system, since a large amount of heat was constantly generated from radioactive elements.
On September 29, 1957, the cooling system in one of the reservoirs that served as the storage facility failed. Probably, problems in the operation of this system could be detected earlier, but due to the lack of repair, the measuring instruments were worn out. Maintenance of such equipment was difficult due to the need for a long stay in the zone of high levels of radiation.
As a result, the pressure inside the container began to increase. And at 16:22 (local time) there was a strong explosion. Later it turned out that the container was not designed for such pressure: the explosion force in TNT equivalent was about 100 tons.
Incident scale
They expected a nuclear accident from the Mayak plant as a result of a production failure, so the main preventive measures were aimed at preventing this type of emergency.
No one could have imagined that the Kyshtym accident that occurred in the radioactive waste storage would take the palm off the main production and attract the attention of the entire USSR.
So, as a result of problems with the cooling system, a capacity of 300 cubic meters exploded. meters, in which there were 80 cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste. As a result, approximately 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. The explosion force in TNT equivalent exceeded 70 tons. As a result, a huge cloud of radioactive dust formed over the enterprise.
It began its journey from the plant and in 10 hours reached the Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions. The area of defeat was enormous - 23, 000 square meters. km Nevertheless, the main part of the radioactive elements was not blown away by the wind. They settled directly on the territory of the Mayak plant.
All transport communications and production facilities were exposed to radiation. Moreover, the radiation power in the first 24 hours after the explosion was up to 100 x-rays per hour. Radioactive elements also entered the territory of the military and fire departments, as well as the prison camp.
Evacuation of people
10 hours after the incident, permission was received from Moscow to evacuate. People all this time were in the polluted territory, without having at the same time any protective equipment. People were evacuated in open cars, some were forced to go on foot.
After the Kyshtym accident (1957), people exposed to radioactive rain underwent sanitary treatment. They were given clean clothes, but as it turned out later, these measures were not enough. The skin so absorbed radioactive elements that more than 5, 000 injured in the disaster received a single dose of radiation in about 100 x-rays. Later they were distributed in different military units.
Pollution Cleaning Work
The most dangerous and difficult task of decontamination fell on the shoulders of volunteer soldiers. The military builders, who were supposed to clean up the radioactive waste after the accident, did not want to do this dangerous job. The soldiers decided not to obey the commands of their superiors. In addition, the officers themselves also did not want to send their subordinates to the collection of radioactive waste, because they knew about the danger of radioactive infection.
It is also noteworthy that at that time there was no experience in cleaning buildings from radioactive contamination. The roads were washed with a special tool, and the contaminated soil was removed with bulldozers and taken away for burial. Sawn trees, clothes, shoes and other items were sent there. Volunteers who liquidated the consequences of the accident were given a new set of clothes daily.
Accident liquidators
People involved in the aftermath of the disaster should not have received a radiation dose exceeding 2 x-rays per shift. For all the time of presence in the infection zone, this norm should not exceed 25 x-rays. Nevertheless, as practice has shown, these rules are constantly violated. According to statistics, for the entire period of liquidation work (1957-1959), approximately 30 thousand employees of Mayak received radiation exposure in excess of 25 rem. These statistics do not include people who worked in areas adjacent to the Mayak. For example, soldiers from the surrounding military units were often involved in life-threatening jobs. They did not know for what purpose they were brought there and what is the real degree of danger of the work that they were assigned to carry out. Young soldiers made up the vast majority of the total number of liquidators of the accident.
Consequences for the workers of the plant
What turned out for the employees of the Kyshtym accident? Photos of the victims and medical reports once again prove the tragedy of this terrible incident. As a result of a chemical accident, more than 10 thousand employees with symptoms of radiation sickness were removed from the plant. In 2.5 thousand people, radiation sickness was established with complete certainty. These victims received external and internal radiation, as they could not protect their lungs from radioactive elements, mainly plutonium.
