The Kyshtym disaster, which occurred at Mayak in Russia on 29 September 1957, was rated as a level 6 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the third most severe incident after Chernobyl and Fukushima. This is usually referred as the East-Ural Radioactive Trace or the "Kyshtym disaster". Since the late 70-s the spent nuclear fuel from the VVER-440 reactors of the Kola NPP has been processed to produce new fuel for the RBMK reactors of the Leningrad NPP. Nearly all of the spent fuel from Russia’s now-defunct Soviet nuclear submarine fleet made its way to Mayak, and saved Russia’s northern ports and Western Europe from a catastrophe of another kind. Many clean-up workers faced lethal radiation doses of more than 100 Roentgen. Many of them died as a consequence of the exposure or later contracted cancer. There is one catastrophe, noted by multiple Reddit users, which would be the perfect follow up to Chernobyl: the Kyshtym disaster. The people who leave Muslyumovo loose their rights for compensation, it is as if the health ruined by radiation could be restored at once. The barbed wire remained only in kitchen gardens. And while engineering heroics have finally been brought to bear on the smoldering sarcophagus at Chernobyl, and robots troll the wreckage of Fukushima, this catastrophe by many accounts continues to churn radioactivity into the environment and to sicken a hostage population. The history of radiation accidents in the former Soviet Union originated in the Chelyabinsk region at the plutonium facility No 817 which is known today as the industrial enterprise "Mayak". The managers of the enterprise knew that any remedial actions would have to be taken under conditions of high radiation but they silently reconciled themselves to possible victims. Conscript soldiers and even schoolchildren were involved in the decontamination effort of the accident area. [1], The Kyshtym Disaster was an accident in the world's largest nuclear complex Mayak in Russia and is today one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the world. We, children, always managed to find ways in. Kyshtym disaster, explosion of buried nuclear waste from a plutonium-processing plant near Kyshtym, Chelyabinsk oblast, Russia (then in the U.S.S.R.), on September 29, 1957.Until 1989 the Soviet government refused to acknowledge that the event had occurred, even though about 9,000 square miles (23,000 square km) of land were contaminated, more than 10,000 people were evacuated, and … When the time for the move came, bureaucrats took issue with their paperwork or their medical records, dooming them over clerical errors. Furthermore, 39 of them occurred during the last 8 years (as of 2009). Now the Russian Government is considering plans to import nuclear waste to Mayak from around the world.[2]. However, it only confirms that they remain to live on the same contaminated territory near the radioactive river. It might be one of the worst offenders in polluting the environment. Al White: The Story of a Marine Grunt in the First Battle of Khe Sanh (April 1967) - Duration: 1:19:39. The accident was kept secret for several decades, but we now know that it was at a secret nuclear reprocessing site called Mayak. (...) However, a price far too dear is paid for the wellbeing of the locals. (Wikimedia Commons: Jan Rieke) Of course, it is not the Lake of Geneva, but the water in the river is pure. The population of Muslyumovo Eastern Urals State Reserve (russ. The only other nuclear accident to be rated a 7, the highest on the international scale, was Chernobyl in 1986 in Ukraine. But too much of Mayak’s history – a history written in the illnesses and deformities of its witnesses – has come to light only by accident and happenstance. Media reporting of the nuclear accident near Kyshtym first appeared in 1958. According to research of the Mayak experts in the case of the dam destruction radioactive water will reach the Muslyumovo village in 8 hours. - The Colorado Coalition, Pingback: Nuclear news – last week of September « nuclear-news, Pingback: Nuclear news Australia for the last week in September | Nuclear Australia, Pingback: The worst nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of — Beyond Nuclear International « nuclear-news, Pingback: The worst nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of — Beyond Nuclear International « Antinuclear, The worst nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of, Andreyeva Bay has begun to wend its way for reprocessing, Healing Hózhó in the Nukescape: Hózhó Naasháa Doo, Nuclear fallout and the downwinders’ dilemma, The worst Nuclear Accident you never heard of. The strontium 90 flowing through the river, the doctors have concluded, has settled into the population’s bones. The Kyshtym Accident was a chemical explosion in a highly radioactive waste liquid storage tank, which led to a cloud of radioactive material spreading contamination to the north-east of Mayak, forming the East Urals Radioactive Trace (EURT). Rosatom says that due to the recession they have no possibility to continue the resettlement process. This page was last edited on 22 September 2017, at 16:40. Is it up to the task? The actual accident happened a few kilometers down the road in the closed city of Ozersk. The first peep of it came in 1976, when a dissident scientist named Zhores Medvedev was the first to publish his suspicions that the government wasn’t telling the whole story. Because of the intense secrecy surrounding Mayak, it is difficult to estimate the death toll of Kyshtym. Out of sight, out of mind. The total number of officially registered casualties is more than 500,000 people not including the military personnel of the construction battalions. … The Kyshtym disaster is the second largest devastation after Chernobyl. Many of the remaining adults suffer from lymph node swelling so severe that their words are unintelligible to visiting physicians. After the Kyshtym disaster in 1957 the Karachay Lake on the territory of the Mayak facility was used for open-air "storage" of liquid radioactive wastes. More recently, a decades long pile up of the Soviet navy’s nuclear fuel left to rot at Andreyeva Bay has begun to wend its way for reprocessing at Mayak – suggesting the once doomed plant might be able to atone for past sins. The Mayak nuclear facility, until recently deleted from all Russian maps, is the size of a small city and has been used to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons and reprocess nuclear reactor fuel for over 50 years. The Kyshtym disaster is shrouded in mystery and muddled by years of Soviet suppression of information. Any nuclear power plant produces spent nuclear fuel and radioactive wastes which are extremely dangerous to all living things. In 1957, there was a nuclear disaster in a city called Cheliabinsk-40 in the Ural Mountains of the Soviet Union, the blow came from an underground tank filled with radioactive waste. Only the diseased winds blowing north in the aftermath gave any indication it was there. 400 million m³ of radioactive waters and bottom sediments will spread over the villages downstream the Techa River and migrate into the open hydrographic network of Tobol-Irtish-Ob and the Arctic Ocean. Even the Kyshtym cleanup was sold to terrified locals with euphemism and misdirection. After the accident 248 villages were resettled from the Techa river. Exposure standards were violated and maximum exposure limits were sufficiently exceeded. The waste started to heat up, eventually exploding at a temperature of 350 degrees Celsius. 1). However, Mayak continues to dump low-level radioactive waste directly into the Techa River. People were warned that it was prohibited to use the water from the river and they had to tend their cattle in another place. Abandoning homes their families lived in for generations for paltry sums to rebuild in tiny crowded apartments were judged by many to be a poor trade. Many residents of Muslyumovo and other contaminated villages haven’t gone anywhere at all. The tank held highly radioactive waste which overheated and blew, belching up a 160-ton cement cap buried twenty-four feet underground and tossing it in the air. Rosatom made a decision to resettle only a part of the village, another part, called Muslyumovo station which is only 2 km away and also unsuitable for life will stay where it was. The goal is for the 80,000 or so residents forced to evacuate to eventually be able to return.Decontamination has never been done on such a large scale before. On September 29, 1957 a liquid waste storage container exploded and released 20 MCi of radioactivity. To follow the river’s northerly flow is to draw a morbid map of mortality and disease: record rates of chromosomal abnormalities, birth defects and cancers vastly higher than the Russian average mark each new village it passes. It is impossible to act only on the basis of these regulations while it is not governed by the law. Specialists warn that the destruction of the Techa dams may lead to environmental disaster and it is fearful to imagine its devastating effect. No one knows their future ... Gosman Kabirov, NGO "TECHA": There is the highest radiation background in the village since the dam functioned until its closure in 1954. Thousands have died and many more live with its debilitating legacy: sickness, sterility and poverty. Zhores Medvedev, a Soviet dissident, has written numerous journal articles as well as two books on the subject. The Kyshtym nuclear energy complex lies approximately 15 kilometers east of the city of Kyshtym in the eastern foothills of the south-central Ural Mountains and on the south shore of Lake Kyzyltash (see Fig. Less well known than the events of Chernobyl, the Kyshtym … The Soviet fake news name stuck. Regardless of where they live, however, they continue to be visited by doctors who keep detailed records of their decay. The Nuclear Disaster of Kyshtym 1957 and the Politics of the Cold War Thomas Rabl Summary In the late afternoon of 29 September 1957, a major explosion at the Soviet military nuclear facility “Mayak” located in Kyshtym in the Southern Urals, caused the contamination of an area of 20,000 square kilometers, home to 270.000 people. According to the data of the Department of Natural Resources in the Ural Region just in the year 2000 alone more than 250 million m³ of water containing thousands of curies of tritium, also strontium and cesium-137 were discharged into the Techa River. I know that according to sanitary norms construction is prohibited in case the radioactivity level is 100 Bq - in this place and area is subject to compulsory resettlement in case of 200 Bq. He has argued that a vast contaminated area exists east of the city of Kyshtym … - The Colorado Coalition, Nuclear news – last week of September « nuclear-news, Nuclear news Australia for the last week in September | Nuclear Australia, The worst nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of — Beyond Nuclear International « nuclear-news, The worst nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of — Beyond Nuclear International « Antinuclear. The actual accident happened a few kilometers down the road in the closed city of Ozersk. Later the orphanage was closed and the former pupils dispersed all over the country. In 2015, the Ministry of Justice declared her legal aide group, Planeta Nadezh, a foreign agent. The government uses the poverty of the aggrieved village to tie the people to the contaminated land. It’s called the Kyshtym disaster and before the mid 1980s the town’s official location wasn’t even designated on a map. Moscow suppressed the details of the accident for nearly three decades. Here, on the southern bank of the Kiziltash lake, under conditions of total secrecy, in feverish haste burning out and wasting the workers the first Soviet atomic bomb was created. Kyshtym disaster There were problems at the Mayak nuclear reprocessing facility from the getgo. In 1945, the Soviet Union built the … These measurements are not suitable for to a severe Ural climate. Rosatom is just a department, it's an enterprise. Kyshtym disaster. In many places it exceeds the natural background by 100 times. There is a similar half-ruined building nearby which housed on orphanage until the 1990-s. The river militia used to patrol and fine us. Kutepova, who has long battled Chelyabinsk officialdom on behalf of Mayak’s afflicted, became an irritant the government grew tired of hearing. During the clean-up, each person could only afford to spend a maximum of 40 seconds inside or near the facility. Later, the circumstances by which an official version of the accident emerged were almost accidental. Spent nuclear waste generates heat, the tank cooling systems failed and containment of the material also failed leading to a non-nuclear explosion on the order of 70-100 tons of TNT. Non-workers, like children and pensioners, receive $2 per month, working residents receive $6 per month. Today Mayak is a nuclear fuel cycle facility on which the whole military and civil nuclear complex of Russia is based. The experts counted that 250 accidents had happened during 50 years of the Mayak activity. Unlike Chernobyl, it has received very little attention. A column of radioactive dust and smoke rocketed skyward for a half mile, which sent down a sooty fallout. The waste that was dumped in the Techa River from 1949 to 1956 still claims victims in … Originally known as Chelyabinsk-40, the complex was later renamed to the Mayak Production Association and served as the location for the emerging Soviet nuclear program in the years immediately following World War II. A post-war population of mostly women and children were given rags and mops – and no protective gear – to sop up what they were told was the mess from a coal boiler explosion in the village of Kyshtym. It was not until 1976, when the writings of Soviet dissent Dr. Zhores Medvedev began to appear, that wider attention was given to this subject. Gosman Kabirov, NGO "TECHA": There was a directive prohibiting the construction on this site because of radon concentration up to 200 Bq per m³. It creates an impression that they try to save maximum money on construction. Russian regulators say the plant stopped its dumps in 2004 – after a lawsuit and criminal charges unseated the plant’s scandal-tarred director. Pingback: The worst Nuclear Accident you never heard of. Stock up on tins of beans, round up your loved ones and head for the nearest fallout shelter… because things are about to get nuclear From atomic explosions occurring at the height of the Cold War to alleged North Korean nuclear tests – get ready for 10 Shocking Nuclear Disasters That Were Covered Up. After Perestroika everything is allowed: they grow wheat and cut hay. The "Kyshtym Disaster" is the third biggest nuclear disaster in history, according to the International Nuclear Event Scale, behind the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster… Medvedev, an exiled Soviet geneticist, claimed in several articles and books that a "disaster" occurred near Kyshtym in 1957/58. In 1952 during strong flooding there were immediate releases of plutonium from the Mayak facility. Mayak as seen from across the Techa River, which it has contaminated for decades. This accident resulted in a regional disaster and a radioactive cloud that contaminated more than 300 square miles… many people received very high radiation exposures, some suffered acute radiation syndrome. Industrial equipment was seemingly much more valuable than health and the personnel lives and the dangerous impact of nuclear facilities on the environment and the residential population was not taken into consideration at all. A post-war population of mostly women and children were given rags and mops – and no protective gear – to sop up what they were told was the mess from a coal boiler explosion in the village of Kyshtym. In 1961 the Techa River banks were fenced with barbed wire. For decades after Mayak was founded to produce plutonium for Soviet atomic bombs, it dumped untreated radioactive waste directly into the nearby Techa River. : VUGZ), established 1966 after the Kyshtym accident. Others decided what Rosatom was offering was a raw deal. The children freely bathed in the river, fished and ate the fish. The reception was not kind. People resent the situation. The existing reality shows that transportation of spent nuclear fuel and fuel assemblies from submarines to another region is just a relocation of problems and it can not be a proper solution. Posted on September 29, 2019 by beyondnuclearinternational. It affected the same territory of the Eastern-Ural Radioactive Trace and again the residents of the local settlements became victims of radioactive exposure. These water storage basins contain millions of curies. It was called "river disease". They decide for themselves whether to purchase or not to purchase. Underneath here it shows up to 4,500 micro R/h. (About the new houses provided by Rosatom:) The foundation is 15 cm deep and only one spade wide, the wooden walls are 18 cm thick. In 1953, doctors examined 587 of 28,000 exposed people and found that 200 had clear cases of radiation poisoning. But various investigations by environmental non-profits have cast doubt on that claim ever since. Since the 1950s, accidental and deliberate releases of radiation have exposed over a quarter of a million people living around the plant to high levels of radiation. The Kyshtym Disaster of 1957: The largest nuclear disaster we’ve never heard of Jan 17, 2018 Martin Chalakoski The nuclear-arms race of the Cold War era, particularly when “fought” between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, nearly brought humanity to the brink of disaster. She fled the country for Paris later that year. (Photo: wecf.eu). The Kyshtym disaster contaminated an area up to 20,000 square kilometres, known as the East-Ural Radioactive Trace, and thousands of people near the plant were evacuated. The Soviet government didn't acknowledge the East-Ural Radioactive Trace for 32 years. House in Muslyumovo. It is located on both banks of the Techa River. Nobody knows whether in future they will do it or not. People in the town were issued cards identifying them as residents of an irradiated zone, entitling them to certain lusterless perks. A forcible argument designed to convince the residents of Muslyumovo to resettle to a new place is that they will retain all privileges. ... or in the clean-up operation afterwards. The first nuclear reactor and radiochemical plant were built here in mid-40s of the 20th century. 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