"This painting is dedicated to the people that perished at Chernobyl"
On a warm lazy day in May 1986 one of Chernobyl's nuclear reactors was ablaze, glowing, burning out of control. A complex procedure routinely carried out to shut down the reactor went sadly wrong. Fuel rods were spewed from the reactor as the explosion took place. Subsequently a massive dose of radiation was released into the atmosphere, vomiting a lethal dust cloud of Alpha emitting Plutonium. These particles being very dangerous to the lungs, Soviet scientists and physicists worked in levels of radiation that would be considered suicidal in the west.
They formed a team of specialists calling themselves
the "Complexed Expedition", their mission to collate information concerning levels of
radiation in and around the reactor.
Red army volunteers were used instead of robots, the intense heat from the core combined with the radiation rendered the robots useless. 3,400 men made the debris-clearing roof runs, they were given the name of "Bio Robots".
Acute radiation syndrome killing many of the firemen immediately after the accident, Senior officers were well aware that such potent levels of radiation would kill within under an hour. These brave men and women sacrificed their lives to contain this catastrophe.
Construction of the Sarcophagus became a gargantuan exercise. 600,000 human beings worked in the clean up and were known as "Liquidators". A quarter of a million "Liquidators" reached their lifetime radiation limit in the operation.
The scientists were worried, because if rain entered the reactor it could trigger a self sustained chain reaction. The explosion threw the 2,000 ton reactor lid into the air, landing precariously on edge in the mouth of the reactor vessel. Pieces of core were scattered all around and radio active smoke poured forth from the decapitated reactor shell. There were fears of a further catastrophe, so speed was crucial.
They were forced to build on the damaged concrete of Block 4 and by the end of October the open reactor was almost covered. The "Liquidators" were finishing the most difficult civil engineering task of modern history, but by the end of 1986 the sarcophagus was sealed.
The problem seemed buried, the powers-that-be turned their attention to the unfolding tragedy in the contaminated villages of Bela Russia and the Ukraine. But hidden inside the sarcophagus and still fearful of another explosion the scientists of the complexed expedition continued their hunt for nuclear fuel. In December 1986 deep in the basement of block 4, they discovered an intensely radioactive mass. The mass was more than two metres across and many tons in weight. Because of its shape it was christened the "Elephants Foot", It showed that sand had absorbed the hot nuclear fuel in glass. Were did the molten lava come from?...
Deep down in the basement their questions were answered, but what they saw confounded all expectations. The entire structure of the core had simply vanished. If it was not inside the reactor where had the escaped fuel gone ?
The destruction underneath the reactor staggered them, not only had it lifted off the lid but had forced down the reactor base by four feet. Melted nuclear fuel material had poured out of the reactor vessel spilling into the ruins and corridors forming unusual shapes. The fuel combined with the sand to form a lava, thus trapping and diluting the radio active material. In this form the chances of another chain reaction were remote. Scientists were elated by this finding, but as one problem receded another has come to replace it - it is now the greatest risk from Chernobyl today. The concrete structure of the sarcophagus after being built in haste is crumbling. If debris falls on the 30 tons of radioactive dust the resulting cloud could escape into the environment.
The legacy from Chernobyl will be with us for the next 500 years. Peoples lives have been destroyed, whole families decimated, their communities dissolved, huge tracts of land contaminated and sealed off. Secrecy surrounding Chernobyl took off to a level verging on paranoia. The cover up of Chernobyl will haunt the corridors of power in the Kremlin for generations. This was a crime of incompetence and could have been averted.
"I doff my cap to the heroes, the helicopter pilots, bio robots, liquidators, the scientists and all the innocent human being; who have been victims of this tragedy"...
What will 500 years of this legacy now cost mankind ? For complex systems the local effects can be far outweighed by those further afield and it is unacceptable for modern accountants to dismiss such costs as zero, just because they cannot be easily quantified. The value of life, the planet and our future must be regarded as infinite, unless positively shown otherwise. Companies must be held responsible globally for all their environmental and social dropout, preferably at the planning stage.