The Forgotten Heroes of Chernobyl. Udo Fehring
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knew that this was just as important in order to process his experiences and not bear with them forever.
Oleg worked as an engineer in a machine fabric, in a business park on the outskirts of Kiev. He had studied mechanical engineering. His company produces machines for forestry, which was an important source of income in the Ukraine.
Her wives, Anna and Darja, also worked part-time, because the kindergartens were well organized and welcomed the children already at the age of two.
Anna worked in a bakery in the neighborhood and also had a lot of joy in her work, especially in dealing with people who also appreciated her friendliness.
Darya worked in the Personnel Office of the city of Kiev and shared a job with another half-day worker.
In the evening, the families gathered for a dinner together. Everyone told about his or her experience of the day. In addition, always the radio turned on, actually more to listen to lively music than to receive news or information.
But this time there were disturbing news: foreign media reported that in Sweden much higher levels of radioactive radiation were measured. Unfortunately, no-one yet knew what triggered the rise in these values. The Ukrainian families in Kiev knew that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with its four blocks stood very close to it. Actually, they did not hear much about Chernobyl, which concerned the safety of the reactor. And nobody knew if this was a good or a bad sign. Everyone was aware that news, especially those that left Ukraine or the Soviet Union in a bad light, was frequently censored. And so it was sometimes more objective to sometimes receive foreign channels.
Wadim and Anna expressed their sympathy and sympathized with the Swedish people. They were sure that the increased levels were also triggered by a nuclear accident in Sweden.
On the other hand, they were relieved that this
nuclear accident had not happened in their environment. And so their conversation quickly returned to the day's events.
The next day in the morning, both families sat together at breakfast. Curiously enough, Wadim once again heard to a western radio station, because he wanted to know how the news of the nuclear accident developed.
And in fact, there was news in this regard: that the Swedish authorities were now excluding that a nuclear accident happened in Sweden. The accident had to have happened elsewhere and only the radioactive cloud had moved towards Sweden. Weather experts were also consulted to analyze the air movements in the past few days to locate where the accident must have happened.
When Anna got home at noon, she immediately turned the radio on again. The English broadcaster was now almost constantly informing about the nuclear accident. The evidence probably indicated that it possible that it the accident happened in Chernobyl. The evaluations of the first satellite images showed that in the night to Saturday there had probably been a bigger explosion in block 4 of the nuclear power plant there.
Anna immediately ran to Darja, who already knew about that. The advice of experts on radioactivity was that the affected population should stock up on iodine-based tablets. These iodine tablets had the effect that the thyroid needed iodine was saturated with this natural iodine in the tablets and so the radioactive iodine, which was released in a reactor accident, would no longer been absorbed.
In front of the pharmacy, a long line had queued up and all in the queue had only one target: to buy iodine tablets.
It took half an hour until Anna and Darja had reached the counter. And indeed they got one of the last packs of iodine tablets. The pharmacist assured that he had already ordered more iodine tablets, but since these were currently hoarded in other parts of the country, he could not say yet, if and when he should get replenishment.
But for now, these packs should last for two weeks for both families.
Anna had heard that job pills needed to be taken very early if there was still no saturation of the thyroid with the radioactive iodine. Therefore, she gave Marusha the recommended daily allowance still in kindergarten when she picked her up there. The same did Darja with her children.
When the men came home, there was only one more topic: What had happened in Chernobyl? The official Soviet media had not commented anything yet.
Wadim decided to call friends in Pripyat, the city just next to the nuclear plant. Some of these friends even worked in the power plant. They ought to know, that was Wadim's thought. But none of these friends answered the phone. Actually, at least the wives or children should have been at home. But he could not reach anybody. Wadim became skeptical and his concerns grew.
The only thing that gave him hope for the situation of his family was that when the radioactive cloud from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was 50 km north of Kiev, had moved to Sweden, that meant that it was not likely to have passed Kiev.
But that was only a small relief, because no one really knew about nuclear accidents, much less how radiation was released and spread.
Finally, on Tuesday evening, the Russian authorities reported that in the Chernobyl nuclear plant it happened an accident.
During the night to Saturday, the new turbogenerator emergency system of Unit 4 of the reactor was tested. For the test, the power had to be shut down. The reactor fell into a performance range where it became unstable. At this time, the reactor should have been shut down for safety reasons. Since this did not happen, it came in the course of this action to unforeseen events, which ultimately led to an explosion in reactor 4. (1)
The authorities assured, that the situation in the power plant was completely under control. Just to protect the nearby population in the unlikely event, the radio announcer pointed out, of threatening radiation exposure around the power plant, the population was evacuated as a precautionary measure.
As it turned out later, the evacuation was carried out under absolute time pressure. Each family had only two hours to pack all the important things until the buses picked them up. And, at the same time, no one knew that they would never see their homes and Pripyat again.
But now it was out: something had happened. However, Wadim also knew very well what he had to judge with phrases like "being completely in control". These formulations were used solely to calm down the population and not to inform them as desired.
Wadim turned to Anna: "Do you believe them?".
Anna answered, as Wadim had expected: "No word! Come on, tune to the English Channel again, maybe they know more now. "
Wadim turned the transmitter button until the used English voice can be heard again.
Wadim and Anna had both learned English at school and at that moment it was paying off.
Unfortunately, at the time, the British and Western authorities were still not aware of the causes and effects of the nuclear accident. They only learned that this accident was now classified as a Super-Worst-Case-Scenario, so called as the largest to be assumed accident.
Wadim reflected the news of the evacuation Pripyat again and suddenly he shook his head.
"What's going on?" Anna asked.
"I just imagined what it means to evacuate a city like Pripyat. Nearly 50,000 people live there. If all are evacuated at once, you need 1,000 buses. That's horrifying!"
Anna now understood that the situation there was more than serious. And Pripyat was only about 50 km away.
Wadim and Anna were also curious about how the Russian authorities would deal with the upcoming celebrations on May 1, which was a high public holiday in socialist countries with public parades, in which normally joyful children's groups participated.
Would they have the courage to cancel all parades in the affected area? Or would they, that would Wadim and Anna expected, suppress all the bad news about Chernobyl and act as if nothing had happened.
Wadim and Anna had hoped that with the formula of "Glasnost" praised under President Gorbatschov, which means openness and transparency, something would have changed with regard to negative reports as