General Antoshkin was a leader of the so-called liquidators, the hastily assembled teams of military and civilian workers sent to the Chernobyl disaster site. Braving enormous risks, they became heroes and are now widely revered in Russia for preventing the crisis from becoming worse.
On 4 May 1986, just a few days after the initial disaster, mechanical engineer Alexei Ananenko, senior engineer Valeri Bespalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov stepped forward to undertake a mission that many considered to be suicide.
Contrary to reports that the three divers died of radiation sickness as a result of their action, all three survived.
Seven hundred thousand men were conscripted into the Chernobyl area to “liquidate” or “blot out” the released radiation from the Chernobyl Nuclear accident. The selfless efforts of these “liquidators”—miners, soldiers and firemen—are unparalleled in history.
A hero who saved the world in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion has been pictured today fleeing for his life, as he attempts to escape his blitzed homeland. Alexei - or Oleksiy - Ananenko, 62, waded through radioactive water to successfully prevent a second cataclysmic explosion at the stricken nuclear reactor.
The heroic men were named as mechanical engineer Alexei Ananenko, senior engineer Valeri Bespalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov. Ananeko said to Soviet media in 1986, "Everyone at the Chernobyl NPS (nuclear power station) was watching this operation."
Valery Khodemchuk was the first person to die in the Chernobyl disaster as it is thought he was killed instantly when the number 4 reactor exploded. Memorial to Khodemchuk in the reactor 4 building. His body was never found and it is presumed that he is entombed under the remains of the circulation pumps.
Underneath his portrait, the text reads: “Valery Khodemchuk's body was never recovered. He is permanently entombed under Reactor 4.”
Alexander Yuvchenko was on duty at Chernobyl's reactor number 4 the night it exploded on 26 April 1986. He is one of the few working there that night to have survived. He suffered serious burns and went through many operations to save his life, and he is still ill from the radiation.
Answer and Explanation: While at least 27 firefighters died in the weeks following the disaster, many others survived, at least initially (and many were hospitalized for radiation poisoning even if they did later recover).
The immediate cause of the Chernobyl disaster was the pushing of the AZ-5 button. Leonid Toptunov was the senior reactor control engineer that night and pressed the button that caused the RBMK reactor to explode. the Chernobyl disaster was an explosion on April 26th 1986.
At the end of the test, which lasted just 36 seconds, Toptunov pressed the shut-down button of the emergency safety system—the system vulnerable to the most serious of the reactor's design faults—inadvertently precipitating its destruction.
There are types of radiation where human bodies could retain radioactive particles and remain radioactive over time, but this is not the type that was seen at Chernobyl. After gamma radiation has passed through the body, the person is no longer radioactive and can't expose other people.
On the morning of Sept. 30, 1999, at a nuclear fuel-processing plant in Tokaimura, Japan, 35-year-old Hisashi Ouchi and two other workers were purifying uranium oxide to make fuel rods for a research reactor.
Long-Term Health Consequences
There has been a 200% increase in birth defects and a 250% increase in congenital birth deformities in children born in the Chernobyl fallout area since 1986. In Belarus, 85% of children are deemed to be Chernobyl victims with genetic changes.
There are no bodies left at Chernobyl. According to official reports, approximately 31 people died as a result of the explosion and consequent fire and meltdown. All these people's bodies were recovered. However, the true number of fatalities is thought to be higher.
Russia paid out £2.3billion to victims between 1992 and 1998 – around £4.5billion if you generously account for inflation. However, many victims of the disaster fell through the cracks without compensation, because they could not prove their health issues were related to Chernobyl.
More than 30 years on, scientists estimate the zone around the former plant will not be habitable for up to 20,000 years. The disaster took place near the city of Chernobyl in the former USSR, which invested heavily in nuclear power after World War II.
What is this? A liquidator, clad in a gas mask and protective clothing, pushes a baby in a carriage who was found during the cleanup of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The infant had been left in an abandoned house in the village of Tatsenki. The worker found the child when he was measuring radiation levels.
Answer and Explanation: The firefighters who had responded to the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, upon their deaths, were buried in lead coffins encased in concrete to prevent and inhibit radioactive contamination of the surrounding environment.
Lyudmila Ignatenko was pregnant with her first child when her husband Vasily hurried to the scene of the 1986 nuclear disaster. She stayed with him in hospital where he gave her carnations from under his pillow, but died painfully of radiation poisoning two weeks after the accident.
On average, the liquidators were exposed to 120 millisieverts of radiation, about 1,200 times the amount you get from a simple x-ray. In the years following the meltdown, more than 4,000 of them died from radiation-caused cancers, and another 70,000 were disabled by exposure.
Three plant engineers bravely went where no man had gone before: the ruptured reactor. Dubbed Chernobyl's “suicide squad,” Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bespalov, and Boris Baranov wore wetsuits to enter the underground area to open release valves and drain coolant dangerously approaching the power plant.
Answer and Explanation: Of the more than 200 first responders at Chernobyl, 27 firefighters died in the weeks following the disaster. The most famous among them is Vasily Ignatenko, who was only 25 at the time of his death.
How Long Will It Take For Ground Radiation To Break Down? On average, the response to when Chernobyl and, by extension, Pripyat, will be habitable again is about 20,000 years.