Arrests in Turkey for theft of nuclear weapons material
Nuclear weapon material worth $72mn seized in a car in Turkey https://www.rt.com/news/463556-turkey-radioactive-material-bust/ : 7 Jul, 2019 Turkish police have taken five people into custody over the smuggling of a highly-radioactive substance used to build nuclear weapons and power nuclear reactors. The 18.1-gram haul was found in a car.
Police discovered a vial of the material after they pulled over a car in the northwestern Bolu province. The substance, believed to be californium, was found stashed under the gear stick wrapped in a bag. Officers had to cut the upholstery to get to the parcel, which is estimated to be worth US$72 million.
Five suspects were detained in the raid, and the mixture was taken to the Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK) for a detailed analysis.
Californium is named after the place where it was synthesized back in 1950 – a laboratory at the University of California. Apart from being used to manufacture nukes and nuclear-powered reactors, the element also has a range of rather innocuous civilian applications. It can be used as part of metal detectors and is used in cancer treatment as well as oil, silver, and gold mining operations. Still, the substance is highly dangerous and its production, distribution, and transportation is restricted. Currently, only the US and Russia synthesize the isotope.
It is not the first time Turkish police have reported a major bust involving californium.
In a scare in March of last year, police in Ankara said they had seized a whopping 1.4kg of the same substance in a car following a tip-off. It turned out to be false alarm, as the haul was later found to have no trace of nuclear or radioactive material, and was, in fact, organic matter.
Fire on Russian nuclear submarine: heroic crew prevented nuclear catastrophe.
Russia’s nuclear submarine disaster will test President Vladimir Putin and his navy. ABC News, By Alexey Muraviev 4 July 19, Russia’s Ministry of Defence has officially acknowledged an incident this week with one of its deep-submergence vehicles (DSV) within Russian territorial waters.
The incident seems to point to one of Russia’s most closely guarded naval assets — the Project 10831 AS-31 (AS-12) Kalitka (Norsub-5), more commonly known as Losharik.
It is named after a popular Soviet cartoon character because of its design specifications — a series of titanium spheres under the hull designed to withstand extreme water pressure.
A secret assignment According to the latest reports, all those killed onboard were assigned to a secret naval unit stationed in St Petersburg, which is responsible for operations of Project 18510 Nel’ma (X-Ray) “autonomous deep-sea stations” — Russia’s official description of the DSV-type platforms — the AS-21 and the AS-35.
However, the declared number of casualties and the seniority of the deceased personnel is unclear. It is assumed the tragedy occurred onboard the AS-12, which has an estimated crew of some 25 officers.
All these special-purpose submarines are assigned to the 29th “deep water” Submarine Division based at the Gadzhievo submarine base on the Kola peninsula.
Formally assigned to the Russian Northern Fleet, the “deep-water” submarine division is under the direct control of the Russian Ministry of Defence’s GUGI Directorate, which oversees covert marine and naval activities ranging from deep-sea oceanographic research to covert testing of advanced sea-based combat systems, to undersea special operations.
Covert trials of a nuclear-armed torpedo? While official word suggests the submarine was undertaking scanning of the seabed in one sector of the Barents Sea, the actual mission being undertaken may be different.It is possible the submarine was taking part in the covert sea trials of the Poseidon sub-sea strategic combat system (a large calibre nuclear torpedo) .
The tragedy would be the first reported large-scale fatality sustained by GUGI’s secret force.
But it cannot be compared with previous disasters involving Russian nuclear-powered submarines such as the RFS Kursk Oscar II class catastrophe back in 2000 or the incident onboard RFS Nerpa Akula IIclass back in 2008.
This disaster has happened within a unit designed specifically to operate in extreme physical environments where the safety and professionalism of the crew is a key to survival and success.
The crew comprises only middle-to-senior rank officers…….
Was a nuclear disaster averted?
It is understood that the fire onboard led to the fatal intoxication of more than half of the crew — about 14 out of some 25 onboard — and serious injuries of another four or five onboard.
Any submariner would concur that a fire onboard a submarine on deployment poses a serious risk. Fire onboard a nuclear-powered submarine is even worse.
While it is unknown what triggered that fatal fire, a mechanical failure or a human error, the fact is clear: the crew, at the cost of their lives, prevented a potentially major environmental disaster if the DSV had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, or exploded…… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-03/russias-nuclear-submarine-disaster-test-vladimir-putin-navy/11274964
Local fishermen saw the Russian nuclear submarine accident
Fishermen witnessed nuclear submarine drama, The sub quickly surfaced and there were subsequent signs of panic on the deck, the local fishermen say. The accident might have been caused by a gas explosion. Barents Observer, By Atle Staalesen,July 03, 2019
They were out doing illegal fishing and do not want to reveal their names. But the men who late Monday evening were onboard a small local fishing boat off the coast of the Kola Peninsula told news agency SeverPost that they witnessed what appeared as a state of emergency.
Eye witnesses
It happened around 9.30 pm near the Ura Bay, one of the witnesses says.
«We were heading towards Kildin, and then, about half past nine in the evening, a submarine surfaces. Suddenly and completely surfaces. I have never seen anything like it in my life. On the deck, people were running around and making fuss,» he told SeverPost.
The fishermen hid in nearby bay from where they saw that a navy vessel and two tugs quickly arrived on site. Around 11 pm, the vessels accompanied the submarine away from the area. There was no sign of smoke, they say.
Other locals later reported that they saw bodies being taken out of the submarine and to an approaching ship.
A source in the Russian Navy later told SeverPost that the submarine seen by the local fishermen was most likely the «Podmoskovie», the mother vessel of the special purpose submarine «Losharik» (AS-31). The «Podmoskovie» is a rebuilt Delta-IV class submarine designed to carry the much smaller «Losharik».
Sources in the Navy on Tuesday told Russian media that the accident had happened in the «Losharik». …… https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/07/fishermen-witnessed-nuclear-submarine-drama
Russia’s nuclear submarine fire: what is known so far
What We Know About Russia’s Deadly Nuclear Sub Fire So Far https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/07/03/what-we-know-about-russias-deadly-nuclear-sub-fire-so-far-a66264 3 July 19 Fourteen sailors were killed in a fire on board a Russian Defense Ministry research vessel while carrying out a survey of the sea floor off Russia’s Arctic coast.
President Vladimir Putin has dispatched Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to Severomorsk, the Russian naval base on the Barents Sea where the submarine is now located, to find out what caused the incident and report back to him.
Here’s what we know so far:
— The incident took place on Monday — nearly a day before the news was released — in Russian territorial waters in the Barents Sea, Shoigu reported to Putin.
— The 14 sailors died of smoke inhalation, Shoigu told Putin late on Tuesday.
— He said the crew extinguished the fire “through their decisive action.”
— A Navy commission has been tasked with investigating the cause of the tragedy and a military branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee has openedan inquiry into the deaths.
— The Defense Ministry had informed Putin of the accident on the day it occurred, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
The submarine
— Russian officials have not commented on the type of vessel involved in the deadly fire.
— An unnamed source in the security forces told the RBC news website the incident took place on the AS-31, a secretive deep-sea nuclear submarine.
— Launched in 2003, the submarine nicknamed Losharik was designed for research, rescue and special military operations, and can hold up to 25 crew members. — It is made from a series of interconnected spheres, making it stronger than conventional submarine designs and allowing it to resist water pressure at great depths.
— Analysts believe the vessel is a key asset of GUGI, the Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, and not part of the Russian Navy. St. Petersburg’s fontanka.ru news website and the Kommersant business daily reported that Losharik’s crew members allegedly belong to a military unit that reports to GUGI.
Casualties
— The Defense Ministry has not released the names of those on board the vessel.
— Putin noted that of the 14 casualties, seven held the rank of captain 1st rank and two had held the Hero of Russia award, the highest military honor issued in the post-Soviet period. — Shoigu confirmed that there were survivors, but did not specify how many. Anonymously sourced reports suggested four to five crew members survived the fire.
— RBC, citing social media, listed four names of possible casualties. They include the son of the military unit leader; a submarine commander who holds captain 1st rank and Hero of Russia; and a second captain 1st rank.
— An Orthodox cathedral in Murmansk, a city north of Severodvinsk, has listed 14 names in its announcement of a service “for the fallen seamen-submariners” on Wednesday evening.
Reactions
— Putin called the incident “a great loss for the [Northern] Fleet, and indeed for the Army.”
— Acting governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov and Murmansk region governor Andrey Chibis expressed their condolences to the victims. — “The Losharik incident will likely have a deep operational impact on [GUGI], given how advanced and relatively few these submarines are,” a former U.S. National Security Council staffer told the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news outlet.
— The United States has allegedly not received requests for assistance from the Russian government, a U.S. 6th Fleet spokesperson told the U.S. Naval Institute’s USNI News website.— Norwegian officials said they had been in touch with their Russian counterparts and were monitoring, but had not detected abnormally high levels of radiation.
— Colleagues around the world, including the U.S., will mourn the loss of 14 Russian sailors because of a “special bond between all submariners,” wroteWashington Examiner columnist Tom Rogan.
Past accidents
— This is the largest accident to take place on a Defense Ministry submarine since 2008, when a freon gas leak on the nuclear-powered submarine Nerpa killed 20 and injured 21.
— In August 2000, the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk sank to the floor of the Barents Sea after two explosions in its bow, killing all 118 men aboard. That accident, soon after Putin took office, focused official attention on the state of the military and its hardware, which had been underfunded and neglected after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
14 Russian Sailors Killed in Fire on Nuclear Sub
14 Russian Sailors Killed in Fire on Nuclear Sub https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/07/02/14-russian-sailors-killed-in-fire-on-nuclear-sub-reports-a66257 3 July 19 Fourteen submariners on board a Russian Defense Ministry research vessel were killed in a fire while carrying out a survey of the sea floor off Russia’s Arctic coast, the ministry was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
The incident took place on the AS-31 deep-sea nuclear submarine nicknamed Losharik, an unnamed source in the security forces told the RBC news website. Launched in 2003, Losharik was designed for research, rescue and special military operations and can hold up to 25 crew members.
The fire broke out at 8:30 p.m. on Monday, RBC cited its source as saying, nearly a day before the ministry released the news. “On July 1 in Russian territorial waters a fire broke out on board a deep-water scientific research vessel that was studying the marine environment of the world ocean on behalf of the Russian navy,” Interfax cited a ministry statement as saying.
“Fourteen submariners died as the result of smoke inhalation … Work is underway to establish the cause of the incident. The investigation is being conducted by the commander-in-chief of the navy.”
The fire has been extinguished and the submarine is now at the Russian Northern Fleet’s base in Severomorsk on the Barents Sea, Interfax quoted the ministry as saying. The statement as cited by the agencies did not identify the type or model of the underwater vessel.
This is the largest accident to take place on a Defense Ministry submersible since 2008, when a freon gas leak on the nuclear-powered submarine Nerpa killed 20 and injured 21.
In August 2000, the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk sank to the floor of Barents Sea after two explosions in its bow, killing all 118 men aboard.That accident, soon after President Vladimir Putin took office, focused official attention on the state of the military and its hardware, which had been subject to underfunding and neglect after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since then, Putin has overseen a massive increase in military funding that has allowed the armed forces to renew their equipment and improve training and morale.
However, accidents have continued to happen as the military, used by the Kremlin to project its growing international muscle, has ramped up its activities and extended into new theatres of operation.
In December 2016, a Russian military plane carrying 92 people, including dozens of Red Army Choir singers, crashed into the Black Sea en route to Syria where Russian forces are deployed. Everyone on board was killed.
Violent Reaction’ Blew Open Furnace Containing Uranium at Y-12 Analytical Chemistry Building
What really went wrong at WIPP: An insider’s view of two accidents at the only US underground nuclear waste repository?
February 2014, two accidents happened at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
(WIPP) in New Mexico – the United States’ only underground repository
for nuclear waste.
key equipment and disabled the repository’s air monitoring system. Then a
chemical reaction breached a waste drum, causing a radiological release
that contaminated large areas of the repository.
Boards and a Technical Assessment Team identified the immediate causes of
the accidents and recommended remedial actions.
accidents and during the three years WIPP was closed, examines the larger
problems within the Energy Department and its contractors that set the
stage for the accidents. He places the blame on mismanagement at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory; structural problems created by a statutory
“fence” between the National Nuclear Security Administration and the
rest of the Energy Department, including the Office of Environmental
Management, which is responsible for disposing of the waste from more than
60 years of nuclear weapons production; and a breakdown of the “nuclear
culture.”
Radioactive contamination triggers evacuation at shuttered Dounreay nuclear site in Scotland
Radioactive contamination triggers evacuation at shuttered nuclear site in Scotland, https://www.rt.com/uk/462857-radioactive-contamination-evacuation-scotland/ 28 Jun, 2019 Workers tasked with cleaning the decommissioned Dounreay nuclear facility in northern Scotland were evacuated from the site after “human error” resulted in low-level radioactive contamination, it has been revealed.
After an employee detected the contamination, a further investigation was quickly launched revealing several other “hot-spots” around the facility. Workers were immediately forced to vacate the area and work temporarily suspended, reportedthe Aberdeen-based Press and Journal.
Site managing director Martin Moore told a stakeholder group on Wednesday that the contamination had been “insignificant,” and was a result of a “lack of due diligence in monitoring around one of the barriers.”
It was human error. It shouldn’t have happened and we’re very disappointed that it did.
The incident actually took place on June 7, but it was only revealed to the public on Wednesday. Some people expressed anger that there was no public statement made on the day it occurred, although the Office for Nuclear Regulation was reportedly informed.
Officials from Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), the company tasked with decommissioning the plant, said that the measure had been precautionary and that the public was never in any danger.
There was no risk to members of the public, no increased risk to the workforce and no release to the environment.
DSRL has been working to decommission the site, which was shut down in 1994. Although they are also tasked with ensuring the area is decontaminated and clean of nuclear waste, they have already been censured for a safety violation at the same site in 2014, when a fire caused by employees released radioactivity into the atmosphere. In the wake of that incident, the company promised to “learn lessons” and implement a wide-ranging new safety strategy, which seemingly turned out to have issues as well.
Located in northern Scotland, Dounreay was established in 1955 to test UK nuclear reactor technology and shuttered in the mid-1990s. Barring any further accidents, work is expected to be completed between 2030 and 2033.
Production at Australia’s only nuclear reactor facility halted after ‘safety incident’
Two workers exposed to unsafe radiation dose at Lucas Heights nuclear facility, Guardian, Michael McGowan@mmcgowan 24 Jun 2019
Production at Australia’s only nuclear medicine facility halted after ‘safety incident’ Production has ceased and an urgent investigation has been launched after two employees at a newly opened Australian nuclear medicine facility at Lucas Heights were exposed to an unsafe dose of radiation late last week.Just two weeks after it was granted a licence to enter into full domestic production, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (Ansto) has confirmed production at its new $168m nuclear medicine facility has been halted after “a safety incident” on Friday morning.
Ansto said three of its workers were “attended to by radiation protection personnel” after the incident, in which contamination was detected on the outside of a container holding 42 millilitres of the radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99).
Two of those workers received a radiation dose above the legal limit roughly equivalent to a conventional cancer radiation therapy treatment, an Ansto spokesman said……
Located at the Lucas Heights nuclear facility in Sydney’s south, the $168m nuclear medicine facility was announced by the federal government in 2012 with the goal of tripling Australian production of Mo-99, the parent isotope of Technetium-99m. …..
It is the second contamination scare at the Lucas Heights facility in only a few months.
In March three staff at the Lucas Heights nuclear facility were taken to hospital after they were exposed to sodium hydroxide when a cap came off a pipe in the nuclear medicine manufacturing building. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/24/two-workers-exposed-to-unsafe-radiation-dose-at-lucas-heights-nuclear-facility
CT scan service shut following radiation leak
The hospital has closed its services upon the recommendation of Nepal Academy of Science and Technology as a monitoring team from NAST found higher level of radiation in areas around the CT scan room. It has suggested that the hospital adopt protection measures against radiation leakage. The hospital had fixed a new CT scan machine six months ago.
Immediate exposure to high level of radiation will harm blood and skin cells. Effect of radiation on gonads, one of the reproductive organs in a male or female can lead to birth defects in babies, said Dan Bahadur Karki, president of Nepal Radiologist Association.
Skin burns can occur when exposed to higher level of radiation. A long term exposure to radiation could result in cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The early symptoms of sickness from radiation are nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.
Radiation leakages can occur in hospitals due to defects in X-ray machines or when proper shielding of the X-ray room is not maintained. To prevent radiation leakage lead shielding is necessary, said Buddha R Shah, a senior scientist at Physical Science Laboratory, Faculty of Science, NAST.
The hospital is unsure of resuming the services any time soon as it lacks enough budget for repair and maintenance of the CT scan room. “It costs around 20-25 lakh to maintain the room. We don’t have enough budget. It takes two to three months for any maintenance work at the hospital incurring a cost of above Rs five lakh as the hospital administration has to go through a tender process,” said Kedar Century, director at the hospital………https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/ct-scan-service-shut-following-radiation-leak/
Veteran of Chernobyl nuclear clean-up: HBO TV episode was very accurate
Chernobyl Episode 4 Scene | HBO | Graphite Clearing
This man knows what it’s really like shovelling radioactive debris on top of Chernobyl’s reactor ABC News
Key points:
- At age 32, Jaan Krinal was forced to go to Chernobyl and clean the roof of the reactor
- He says men were initially enthusiastic to help eliminate the radiation
- One-third of the men of his town he served with in Chernobyl have died
When he left his wife and two children on May 7, 1986 and went to work, Jaan Krinal didn’t know he would be one of those people.
The 32-year-old was working on a state-owned farm in Soviet-occupied Estonia.
Because he’d been forced to complete the Soviet military’s retraining a year before, he was confused when officers surprised him at work and said he’d been called up again — immediately.
Jaan and 200 other men were taken to a nearby school. Once they’d walked through the door, no-one was allowed to leave.
The men’s passports were seized before they were loaded onto buses and taken to a forest, where they were told to slip into brand new army uniforms.
“That’s when I first questioned what’s really going on here,” Jaan recalls………
Workers told radiation could have health benefits
It all happened fast.
Hundreds of men boarded a Ukraine-bound train on May 8. By the next evening, they were setting up camp on the edge of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone.
They were just 30 kilometres away from the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster — the still-smouldering wreckage of a reactor torn apart by a series of explosions and spewing radiation in a plume across Europe.
Jaan was among the first group sent to clean up in the aftermath of the catastrophe.
Tasked with hosing down radiation on the houses in nearby villages, he was thrown into the thick of it……
Despite the apparent uselessness of the job, they continued to work 11-hour days without a day off until the end of June. After that, they had two days of downtime a month.
As the weeks rolled on, suspicions grew.
“We started to have doubts. But all the officers said, ‘Why are you fretting, the radiation levels aren’t that high.”
In a cruel irony, the commanders told the men that being exposed to radiation would actually have health benefits.
“They joked that whoever has cancer can now get rid of it — because the radiation helps,” Jaan says.
Men unaware of deadly reason behind roof time limit
By the end of September, whatever enthusiasm the men initially felt had faded.
As many developed a cough, concerns grew about whether they were being lied to about the radiation being harmless. The respirators the men were given wouldn’t stay on because of the heat and were used until they got holes in them.
Later they found they should have been replaced every day…….
A rumour had it that the very last leg of the assignment was going on the roof of the reactor to clean up as much debris as possible.
Humans were going to be given a task that remote-control robots had previously attempted, but failed. The machines simply stopped working due to the unprecedented levels of radiation.
“When they told us, ‘You have to go to the roof’, we thought, ‘Oh, this means we can go home soon’,” he says.
On the day, he changed his army uniform for a protective suit, glasses and a gas mask, and a metal groin guard.
“We were all lined up and told, ‘who doesn’t want to go on the roof, step forward’. But only a couple of us did,” he says.
“There was no mass rejection. Most people went up there.
“It had to be done. We couldn’t just leave it. I think everyone realised the longer the reactor would have stayed open, the more dangerous it would have become.”
Jaan was shown on a small screen exactly which piece of debris he had to pick up with a shovel and throw off the roof of the reactor, but strictly warned against going too close to the edge.
He had two minutes to complete the assignment — a bell would ring to tell him when to run back.
The two-minute timeframe was to limit exposure to radiation, which could kill a man.
But this wasn’t communicated to the men at the time.
Jaan says the roof-cleaning scene depicted in HBO’s mini-series Chernobyl mirrored real life events…….
A staggering one-third of the men of his town who went to Chernobyl have died.
The average age of death has been 52.
“Over the past couple of years, just a couple of us have died. But not too long ago it was around 10 men a year,” he says.
“There have been cancers. There have been suicides too, but thankfully not too many.”……
he hopes tourists won’t start flocking to the ghost city.
“I hope they’ll never start sending large groups of tourists there. It’s still a dangerous zone,” he says.
He hasn’t seen the mini-series, but welcomes the attention Chernobyl disaster is getting — he thinks it acts as a warning to the human kind. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-22/chernobyl-what-it-was-really-like-on-top-of-reactor/11223876
Chernobyl meltdown: the melted metal, with uranium and zirconium, formed radioactive lava.
How The Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Meltdown Formed World’s Most Dangerous Lava, Forbes, David Bressan 16 June 19 “………Even areas thousands of kilometers away from Chernobyl are still today contaminated with radioactive particles, transported by the wind in a gigantic plume over Europe.
As the cooling system of the reactor was shut down and the insertion of control rods into the reactor core failed, the nuclear fission went out of control, releasing enough heat to melt the fuel rods, cases, core containment vessel and anything else nearby, including the concrete floor of the reactor building. The fuel pellets inside the fuel rods are almost entirely made of uranium-oxide while the encasing in which the pellets are placed is made of zirconium alloys. Melting at over 1,200°C the uranium and zirconium, together with melted metal, formed radioactive lava burning through the steel hull of the reactor and concrete foundations at a speed of 30 cm (12″) per hour. Concrete doesn’t melt, but decomposes and becomes brittle at high temperatures. Part of the concrete was incorporated in the lava flow, explaining its high content of silicates, minerals composed mostly of silicon, aluminum and magnesium. Due to its chemical composition and high temperature, the lava-like material has a very low viscosity. When lava has low viscosity, it can flow very easily as demonstrated by stalactites hanging from valves and tubes in the destroyed reactor core.
Four hundred miners were brought to Chernobyl to dig a tunnel underneath. It was feared that the radioactive lava would burn through the containment structure and contaminate the groundwater. Only later it was discovered that the lava flow stopped after 3 meters (9 feet). Chemical reactions and evaporating water cooled the mixture below 1,100°C, below the decomposition temperature of the concrete.
About eight months after the incident and with the help of a remotely operated camera, the solidified lava was discovered in the ruins of the reactor building. Externally resembling tree bark and grey in color, the mass was nicknamed the Elephant’s Foot.
At the time of its discovery, radioactivity near the Elephant’s Foot was approximately 10,000 roentgens, a dose so high, only minutes of exposure would prove fatal. In 1996, radioactivity levels were low enough to visit the reactor’s basement and took some photographs. The photos are blurry due to radiation damage. The lava-like material resulting from a nuclear meltdown is also named corium, after the core of the reactor. An unknown uranium-zirconium-silicate found in the corium of Chernobyl was named later chernobylite. Chernobylite is highly radioactive due to its high uranium content and contamination by fission products. Corium will likely remain radioactive for the next decades to centuries. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2019/06/14/how-the-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-meltdown-formed-worlds-most-dangerous-lava-flow/#4d73b4f01691
Chernobyl ‘suicide divers’ saved Europe from nuclear devastation
The world held its breath as the brave volunteers risked it all to but to prevent a second huge explosion. he world owes him an eternal debt, but for Chernobyl hero Alexei Ananenko, it was just part of the job.Engineer Alexei was one of three men who volunteered to wade through radioactive water to prevent a second cataclysmic explosion at the stricken nuclear reactor.
Decked from head to toe in protective clothing, they descended into the bowels of Reactor 4 on a doomsday mission as the world held its breath.
Their heroism gripped viewers of Sky Atlantic drama Chernobyl. But with great understatement, 60-year-old Alexei insisted last night: “It’s nothing to brag about. Why should I feel a hero?
“I was on duty and it was my job. I was trained in what to do.”………
Experts believed that if 185 tons of molten nuclear lava hit the water below it would cause a radioactive steam explosion of 3-5 megatons – so massive that it would leave much of Europe uninhabitable for 500,000 years. Alexei was one of the few employees who knew where the latches and valves were located to drain water from the coolant system.
He, senior engineer Valeri Bespalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov were tasked with turning them off.
Firefighters drained a huge volume of water so the men would not have to swim, but they were still forced to walk through radioactive fluid three metres below ground level.
The image of them carrying search lights as they wade through a toxic soup is captured in the TV drama…….
After the explosion a cloud of radioactive strontium, caesium and plutonium affected mainly the Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus, as well as parts of Russia and Europe. Between 1987 and 1990, 530,000 workers – known as liquidators and conscripted from across the USSR – worked in and around Chernobyl to clear up the toxic mess. ……….. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/selfless-chernobyl-suicide-divers-saved-16523155
America came close to having its own Chernobyl-level nuclear catastrophe
Command and Control, Chapter 1
The U.S. kept nuclear accidents like the Damascus Incident secret for decades.
HBO’s Chernobyl is over, but if you’ve seen the series, you’ll remember it for a long time.
Coming on the heels of the mega-hyped Game of Thrones series finale, the five-part miniseries—created and written by Craig Mazin, and directed by Johan Renck—quickly overtook the fantasy story with its astonishing performances and commitment to its immersion in a world that Americans never really understood.
The focus in the discussion around Chernobyl lies where the miniseries has gone: nuclear reactors meant for peaceful energy. The safety of nuclear plants is of upmost importance, but that’s not the only place nuclear energy is located. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Department of Defense maintains an estimated stockpile of approximately 4,000 warheads. Mishaps with these weapons of mass destruction are referred to as “Broken Arrow” accidents.
The United States has officially had approximately 32 of these incidents, often involving the transport of weapons from one location to another. None of these incidents caused a major disaster, let alone a Chernobyl-like event. Two nuclear weapons were dropped on Goldsboro North Carolina in 1961 and are now commemorated with an historical marker. But there’s no such memorial for the 1980 accident in which a Titan II missile carrying a thermonuclear reactor exploded near Damascus, Arkansas.
Chernobyl offers a new chance to examine these Broken Arrows. Fortunately, both the stories of Goldsboro, the Damascus Incident, and other Broken Arrows have already been documented in the film Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner and based on a book by Eric Schlosser.
Available on PBS, Netflix, and other streaming services, the documentary shows that the story of lies and of nuclear mismanagement is not limited to Soviet borders.
On September 18, 1980, routine maintenance on an Titan II went awry. A Propellant Transfer System (PTS) team was working on the missile under the authority of the Air Force. A ratchet was used instead of a torque wrench, and that was all it took for a socket from the missile’s oxidizer tank to fall 80 feet down, where a freak bump allowed it to puncture the missile’s first-stage fuel tank.
Efforts to stabilize the missile failed, and late into the night, it exploded. Two men sent in to vent the gas were presumed dead. One of them, Senior Airman David Livingston, died 12 hours later. The nuclear warhead was later found in a field.
There are many differences between Damascus and Chernobyl, of course. Honesty was maintained within the chain of command, although the man who dropped the socket had trouble articulating the truth of the situation for half an hour afterward. And while safety protocols couldn’t keep the 7-story missile from exploding, they did keep the warhead in check.
But when it comes to nuclear incidents, Command and Control makes it clear that the U.S. shares more with the scientists of Chernobyl than many feel comfortable to admit.
There may not be a deeply embedded culture of lying stateside, but the U.S. was as willing to cover up the truth of Damascus, as well as thousands of other nuclear accidents, for decades. And when it came down to the final decision making in Damascus, the documentary paints a picture of an out-of-touch Strategic Air Command that issued commands without any understanding of the situation on the ground—decisions that resulted in Livingston’s death.
Mazin has made it clear that his Chernobyl is not primarily focused on nuclear power. It’s a complex subject, as Valery Legasov, played masterfully by Jared Harris, makes clear in the final episode. But perhaps the greatest similarity between Damascus and Chernobyl was the confident belief that nuclear power could be safely managed at all.
Explaining how nuclear power works in a Soviet court, Legasov describes a dance that can generate tremendous energy. But as Adam Higginbottom shows in Midnight in Chernobyl, it’s a dance that people have been trying to get right for many years.
The Soviet system might have set up the scientists at V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant for failure. But even with the best dancers in the world, there’s eventually a missed step.
3 Royal Navy sailors serving on nuclear missile ship were caught taking cocaine
Evening Standard 2nd June 2019 Three sailors serving on a submarine which carries 16 nuclear missiles have
been caught taking cocaine, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The
Royal Navy submariners failed a Compulsory Drugs Test shortly after HMS
Vengeance visited a US naval facility in Florida.
1 This Month
6 June – WEBINAR- Get Inspired by Protests Against Military Bases!
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
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