Chernobyl Notebook by Grigoriy Medvedev

Chernobyl Notebook by Grigoriy Medvedev

Author:Grigoriy Medvedev
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Europe, Russia, History
Published: 1987-04-30T21:00:00+00:00


5

27 April 1986

Long after midnight on 27 April, Maj Gen Antoshkin called the first pair of helicopters by walkie-talkie. But they could not come down in that situation without someone on the ground to guide them. Antoshkin rushed to the roof of the 10-story "Pripyat" Hotel with his walkie-talkie and became the guide for the flight. Unit 4, which the explosion had ravaged, was visible as in the palm of his hand with the corona of flame over the reactor. Further to the right, beyond the Yanov Station and overpass was the highway to Chernobyl, and on it the endless column of empty buses of various colors hiding in the distant morning haze: red, green, blue, and yellow, standing still, waiting for orders. Eleven hundred buses were stretched along the entire road from Pripyat to Chernobyl, which is 20 km. The picture of this convoy standing still on the highway was oppressive.

At 1330 hours, the convoy started up, moved, crawled over the overpass, and broke up into separate vehicles at the entrances of the snow-white apartment buildings. And then, leaving Pripyat, taking people away forever, they carried away on their wheels millions of particles of radioactivity, contaminating the roads of settlements and cities....

Provision should have been made to change the wheels when they left the 10-km zone. But no one thought about that. The radioactivity of the asphalt in Kiev will have between 10 and 30 millirems per hour for a long time yet, and the roads will have to be washed for months.

Testimony of I.P. Tsechelskaya, operative in the Pripyat concrete-mixing unit:

"I and others were told that the evacuation would be for 3 days and that we should not take anything. I went off in just my dressing gown. I only grabbed up my passport and a little money, which soon ran out. They did not let us go back after 3 days. I arrived in Lvov. No money. Had I known, I would have taken along my savings book. But I left everything. The stamp showing that I was registered in Pripyat had no effect on anyone. I asked for help. They did not give it. I wrote a letter to Mayorets, the power minister. I do not know, surely my dressing gown and everything I had on was very 'dirty.' They did not take a reading of me...."

The minister's visa on Tsechelskaya's letter reads:

'"Allow Comrade I.P. Tsechelskaya to apply to any organization of USSR Minenergo. They will give her 250 rubles.' But that visa was dated 10 July 1986. And this was 27 April...."

Testimony of G.N. Petrov:

"At exactly 1400 hours, the buses came to every entrance. They cautioned us once again over the radio: dress lightly, take a minimum of things, we would be coming back in 3 days. Even then, the involuntary thought flickered: if many things were taken, then even 1,000 buses would not be enough.

"Most people obeyed and did not even take what money they had. But in general our people are good: they joked, they cheered up each other, they reassured the children.



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