.webp)
There is one disaster which shook the entire world with the destruction and lasting effects it left on a city in Ukraine, which saw the deadliest substance known to mankind unleashed on a widespread scale.
Of course, we’re talking about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which saw around 30 people die from the initial blast and thousands go on to suffer horrific long-term health issues after a nuclear reactor experienced a critical meltdown and exploded within the Ukrainian city.
It all began on 26 April when Andrei Glukhov was at home on a day off from his job as a nuclear safety specialist at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
Advert
According to Glukhov, he’d heard the explosion but didn’t think much of it at the time as he'd lived 2 miles away in an apartment block.
But it was when he called the Unit 2 Control Room the next day that a technician told him they were increasing power to make up for the loss of Unit 4.
He told The New York Times in 2014 that he'd asked his colleague: “What happened to Unit 4?” to which the man replied: " “Look out the window.”
He went on to recall how he looked out of his balcony and ‘saw smoke coming out of the plant’.
In the following days, Pripyat’s residents were evacuated to Kiev, but Glukhov stayed at the plant for three years to help to keep the last three reactors under control, alongside one man who'd eventually come into contact with the most dangerous object on Earth - also know as the 'Elephant's Foot'.
Artur Korneyev, 65, a radiation specialist first arrived at Chernobyl after the accident and helped to remove radioactive material for three years.
It was his job to locate the fuel and to determine the radiation levels in order to limit the exposure to other workers.
"We were the trailblazers,” he said. "We were always on the front edge."
You may think that all of the radiation was released outwards from the explosion and outside of the plant, but close to 200 tonnes of uranium and its radioactive by-products remained in the destroyed plant.
This stuff can get to such high heats that it causes anything around it, from concrete to buildings to melt.
But when it cools, it looks something like hardened lava, and is extremely dangerous to even be close to - let alone handle.
But Korneyev said they actually use their boot or a shovel to shift it out of the way when attempting to clean up.
The effect?
The radiation specialist now has cataracts and other problems due to his heavy radiation exposure and because of safety and health concerns, he is no longer allowed inside the plant.
"Soviet radiation is the best radiation in the world," he joked to the publication.
After witnessing the extent of the damage, Korneyev was one of the first people to alert experts in the West that the sarcophagus could potentially release another large amount of radioactivity.
That’s when 7 nations agreed in 1995 to pay for large-scale work to make Unit 4 safe, which led to the remaining two operating Chernobyl reactors being closed, with the last one shut in 2000.
After essentially setting up the foundations of what would become the 'Arch project', Korneyev's job was finished and Glukhov carried on to manage the project, a structure which was created to contain the radiation within the ruined Unit 4 reactor.
After returning to the disaster area to scope out the arch, he passed the dreaded Unit 4 reactor, saying: “I realized the scale of the disaster when I saw the open core, glowing.
“I don’t wish anyone would ever see it.”
Britt Jones