Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

Author:Serhii Plokhy [Plokhy, Serhii]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 20th Century, Power Resources, History, Social Science, General, Technology & Engineering, Europe, Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Modern, Science, Nuclear, Disasters & Disaster Relief, Environmental Science
ISBN: 9780241349038
Google: NHdVDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49281368
Publisher: Allen Lane
Published: 2018-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

13

China Syndrome

Mikhail Gorbachev and his colleagues had a full agenda for their Politburo meeting on May 5, 1986. But apart from reports on May Day parades that had taken place throughout the huge country, including in Kyiv, there was little to lift the spirits of the Soviet leadership. The view from the Kremlin was that of a country besieged at home and abroad.

Abroad, the continuing war in Afghanistan weighed heavily on Soviet finances and damaged the image of the USSR in the international arena. “It is clear that a military victory is impossible, no matter how many troops we have there,” Gorbachev told his colleagues that morning. “It is clear that we have not carried out the social revolution for the Afghans—the intention was doomed to failure from the very outset and ‘by definition.’ It is also clear that instead of building up our ‘southern underbelly,’ we have gotten ourselves a zone of instability and internal conflict. We have provoked a much larger U.S. presence in the region than before. We have incited the Muslim world against ourselves and pushed Pakistan into open hostility. In a word, this is a total defeat.”1

At home, the Chernobyl explosion had punched another big hole in the Soviet budget and further damaged the international prestige of the country and its new leader. Even more disturbing, despite all the propaganda efforts to suggest that things were improving, no one could get a handle on the situation, which was becoming worse with every passing day. On May 5, Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov got an update on the health impact of the catastrophe. “The total number of those hospitalized has reached 2,757, of whom 569 are children,” read a report. “Of these, 914 show symptoms of radiation sickness, and 18 of them are in very serious condition.” The previous day, the number of hospital admissions had been reported as 1,882, so the new data represented a daily increase of more than 45 percent. The patients showing symptoms of radiation sickness were no longer only firefighters, reactor operators, and local civilians. Also affected were members of the country’s establishment—leaders and members of the state commission who had been sent from Moscow to fix the problem. Now they were back, with the problem growing worse and their own health in jeopardy.2

On the previous evening, the plane carrying Boris Shcherbina, the head of the state commission, and his numerous deputies and assistants, including government ministers and heads of departments, had landed at the Vnukovo airport in Moscow. Shcherbina and his colleagues boarded a waiting bus that took them directly to Hospital No. 6, where victims of the Chernobyl disaster were being treated for radiation sickness. They were examined by dosimetrists, undressed, washed, and shaved bald. Most of them remained in the hospital for further examination and treatment. The decision to bring Shcherbina and his team back to Moscow for health reasons had been made by Premier Ryzhkov during his visit to the area two days earlier.3

But before Shcherbina was allowed to take care of his health, he was asked to report to the Politburo on the results of his work.

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