Diary of a return to Chornobyl.

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A Return Visit to Chornobyl

Saturday, April 21

Dear Friends and Family,

A year ago I told the story of my visit to Chornobyl. That was as an engineer. Last Saturday we went there as tourists - or maybe more properly as visitors to historical monuments. It was 14 years ago this week that Unit 4 exploded, caught fire, and changed the Soviet Union and Ukraine.

Many facts are clear. Thirty-one operators and firemen died from the explosion and intense radiation exposure of the first few hours. They were doing their jobs. A few hundred more operators, firemen, pilots and soldiers were hospitalized due to high radiation doses in the first few weeks. They too were doing their jobs. Over a half-million "mitigators" spent the summer of 1986 controlling the contamination and building a shelter over the destroyed Unit. Everybody doing their jobs. As a professional, from time to time I remind myself of the importance of avoiding problems and of designing well the systems and structures that must contain the effects of even the most unlikely failures. We must do our job well so that operators, firemen, and "mitigators" need not be called upon for the type of heroic effort seen in 1986.

Going to Chornobyl gives real reminders of the professional lesson. Last Saturday, Marianne and I went there with 30 teachers and journalists. Again, professionals doing their jobs. This time they were doing the research needed to teach and tell an important history lesson. For me it was a refresher course.

The U.S. Embassy had organized the tour as part of this weekend's world-wide celebration of Earth Day. We all piled on a grand tour bus outside the embassy (next to Marianne's school). The 90 minute trip up to "The Zone" was a reminder of the bad state of Ukrainian roads. Were they better in 1986? I couldn't help but think of the difficulty of evacuating 135,000 people. On the second day of the accident, all Kiev buses were sent North over these roads to "temporarily" move everyone away. A decade and a half later, a few score old people have been allowed to end their temporary exile.

Thirty kilometers (19 miles) away from the Chornobyl plant, we reached The Zone and were checked off the official list and transferred to a different bus. One that never leaves the area. Yurey our guide from the Ecology or Emergency or Energy Ministry gave us a few facts and we drove the next 20 kilometers to the town of Chornobyl. Along the way, the landscape seems unchanged from the earlier part of our trip except there is no Spring plowing and planting. There are only empty farm houses and villages.

At the town of Chornobyl, the Ministry outfits us in brown lab coats, sturdy shoes, unflattering caps and gauze masks. On my visit as a worker we did not use any of that and we noticed Yurey stayed in his regular clothes. He said that the clothes were required because visitors worried less that way. Maybe true.

After dressing out, we got back on our captive bus, crossed another gated check point and made the quick trip to the industrial site of the Chornobyl power station. We first pass Units 5 and 6 which were under construction at the time of the accidents. The builder's cranes are still scattered around the area, looking like all they need is someone to go to the cab and start moving men and material. But that will never happen.

Past the construction, the bus goes along a road parallel to the massive set of buildings that house units 1 through 4. Units 1 and 2 have both been shutdown due to fires each plant experienced in the 1990's. Unit 3, back-to-back with it's destroyed twin, still operates but the government has finally committed to shutting it down this year. Good idea.

The end of the massive power block is The Shelter. As much as I work with problems of this structure, it still impresses me. Last year we went on the roof in preparation for a small job to fix some roof beams. The job was small in comparison with the original construction but it took years of planning and preparation. Even then, the beam repair could have been done better. The original Shelter was designed and built in less than six months in a far more hazardous radiation environment. Heroic.

Elsewhere on our tour, we saw the resting place of other "responder equipment". There were acres of trucks, fire trucks, armored personnel carriers and huge helicopters. I remember 14 years ago seeing pictures of these helicopters flying directly into the smoke from the reactor fire as they dumped sand and other material in an attempt to quench the fire. It took almost two weeks and pilots suffered some of the highest radiation doses. Doing their jobs.

But in that week years ago, not everyone was working. In the company town of Prypiat, the 50,000 residents were preparing for the May Day celebration. In the USSR, May Day was about as big a celebration as there was. It celebrated the Worker. It came at the beginning of Spring after almost six months of Winter. There were holidays, parades, and parties everywhere. May Day is still a two-day holiday in post-USSR Ukraine but it brings back 1986 memories too.

On our tour, we could see signs of celebration. The children's Ferris Wheel still waits for the next young riders. In the central town square, the restaurant stands empty, missing the parties celebrating the end of Winter. The Soviet star still stands on top of the hotel but there are no Party dignitaries inside practicing their May Day speeches. No one is using the square phone booths to call home to the cities, towns and villages throughout the USSR where these workers had been born and raised before moving to the ideal community of Prypiat to raise their own kids.

I was glad to leave this town of ghosts and memories.

(See next part of diary for Opachichi village)

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Originally sent April 21, 2000. Reformatted for the web May 20, 2001.

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