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This event immediately killed tens and ruined the lives of tens of thousands of people over the next several decades.
Chernobyl is still considered the worst nuclear accident in history, but it could have been much, much worse, if not for “a platoon of three brave men,” writes Business Insider.
PHOTO GALLERY. See what Chernobyl looks like now
A nightmare that is coming
In the early morning of April 26, 1986, due to a failed attempt, two explosions occurred, during which Chernobyl Unit 4 was blown up.
Two workers died at the same time during the disaster, and another 29 during the next four months, with the number of long-term deaths still rising and the estimate disputed by scientists, government officials and international organizations.
The explosions emitted 400 times more radiation than the bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945.
All the fires were extinguished or stopped within 6 hours, but few expected a more dangerous problem to emerge soon. In early May, the reactor core of Unit 4 was still melting.
Beneath the reactor was a huge pool of water: the coolant from the power plant. A continuous nuclear reaction traveling in a fiery stream of molten radioactive metal approached the water.
“If that had happened, it would have caused a second steam explosion that would have caused unimaginable damage and destroyed the entire power plant, including three other reactors,” wrote Andrew Leatherbarrow, a writer who researches the history of nuclear disasters, in a email to Tech Insider.
A. Leatherbarrow recently published a book, 1:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, detailing the history of the catastrophe on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.
By some estimates, such an explosion could have destroyed half of Europe, leaving the area uninhabited.
PHOTO GALLERY. The Chernobyl disaster: how things turned out
Chernobyl “Platoon”
To avoid a steam explosion, workers had to empty the pool below the reactor. However, the basement was flooded and the valves were under water.
The most popular version of events goes something like this: A soldier and two power plant workers (all volunteers) bravely donned wetsuits and stepped into the radioactive water. Although their lamp went out and the crew remained in the dark, they successfully closed the valves.
They knew the basement was highly radioactive, but officials promised that if they died, they would take care of their families. In fact, it was very likely that it was a mission in which the men clearly knew they would not return.
According to one version of this story, the team that exited the pool already suffered from acute radiation syndrome (ARS). All allegedly died within weeks.
What really happened
Mr. Leatherbarrow has been investigating the disaster for five years. His book presents a slightly different but no less heroic version of events.
“While entering the basement was dangerous, it was not as dramatic as the modern myth has it,” Leatherbarrow said.
Firefighters rescued a couple of times trying to use specialized hoses to drain most of the basement. The three men, according to A. Leatherbarrow, were all power plant workers working that shift when the fire rescue pool drainage procedure was stopped.
They weren’t the first in the flooded basement, either. Others were there to measure radiation levels, although Leatherbarrow said he never knew who they were, how many had entered and what his findings were.
“After the fire pool drainage mission, some water remained, in most places up to the level of the road, but the road was passed,” the Leatherbarrow report said.
“The men entered the basement in wet suits, radioactive water up to their knees, in a hallway full of endless pipes and valves,” he continues. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
The men were concerned that they could not find the valves.
“When we found the tube in the spotlight, we were very happy,” Alexei Ananenko, a mechanical engineer quoted by A. Leatherbarrow, told the Soviet press. “The pipe led to the valves.”
The men found a path that led to the valves in the dark basement. “We heard water flowing from the tank,” Ananenko continued. “And in a few minutes we found the valves.”
Finally, according to A. Leatherbarrow, none of the men died from ARS. The shift manager died of a heart attack in 2005. (A. Leatherbarrow associates this with the confusion of the Chernobyl firefighter of the same name who died from ARS).
PHOTO GALLERY. Chernobyl, caught up in tragedy, is a deadly ruin you will no longer see
Where are you now
As for the other two men, Leatherbarrow said that one of them was still alive and working in the industry, but that he did not publish his name to preserve privacy. Leatherbarrow claimed to have lost track of a third person, but was alive until at least 2015.
This is compounded by conflicting reports from the English media and the Soviet government, which have tried to downplay the disaster. Additionally, Leatherbarrow said the best sources there had yet to be translated from Russian, including reports from top executives, state media reports and an engineer accused of the disaster, but stating that the government had made a scapegoat book.
Yet, Leatherbarrow added, these men risked their lives to save millions of lives during such a large-scale disaster.
“They still walked into the dark and damaged basement below the molten reactor core, which slowly melted with them,” he said.
Like the bravery of many workers hours, months, days, or years after the Chernobyl tragedy, the bravery of these men spurred others to act when unimaginable actions were needed.
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