Chernobyl Fire Station
FIREFIGHTING AT CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR POWER STATION
April 26, 1986
'If we’d followed regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. But it was a moral obligation – our duty. We were like kamikaze.'
Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukraine exploded on April 26, 1986 - heralding the world's worst atomic accident and some say the downfall of the Soviet Union.
The first alarm rang into the nuclear plant's fire station shortly before 1:30 a.m.
Fire on the roof between Reactors No. 3 and No. 4!
A second alarm went out to firefighters from the neighboring city of Pripyat.
Equipped with the barest of protective gear, the firefighters climbed to the roof to extinguish what they could as what was left of the reactor core simmered. They also battled flames in a turbine hall.
Firefighter Anatoly Naidyuk, in an interview with the Associated Press in 1996, described the scene: "There was graphite falling everywhere. We couldn’t see anything.″
The firefighters still managed to knock down the flames before dawn, saving Reactor No. 3 from destruction. The job done they fell ill.
Radiation poisoning. Some died in a matter of days. Others lingered.
The first alarm rang into the nuclear plant's fire station shortly before 1:30 a.m.
Fire on the roof between Reactors No. 3 and No. 4!
A second alarm went out to firefighters from the neighboring city of Pripyat.
Equipped with the barest of protective gear, the firefighters climbed to the roof to extinguish what they could as what was left of the reactor core simmered. They also battled flames in a turbine hall.
Firefighter Anatoly Naidyuk, in an interview with the Associated Press in 1996, described the scene: "There was graphite falling everywhere. We couldn’t see anything.″
The firefighters still managed to knock down the flames before dawn, saving Reactor No. 3 from destruction. The job done they fell ill.
Radiation poisoning. Some died in a matter of days. Others lingered.
TASS REPORT - APRIL 28, 1986
Radiation was detected in Europe after the accident but it wasn't until April 28 that Tass, the official Soviet news agency, confirmed the disaster with a brief statement:
''An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as one of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected. A Government commission has been set up.''
''An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as one of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected. A Government commission has been set up.''
KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA - MAY 16, 1986
Firefighters Viktor Kibenok (left) and Vladimir Pravik (right)
On May 16, the Associated Presss reported from Moscow:
A young firefighter raced to the Chernobyl inferno and stood over the open reactor for hours to contain the flames and avert a catastrophe, but absorbed a massive dose of radiation that killed him, a newspaper said Friday.
Komsomolskaya Pravda, the official youth paper, said Viktor Kibenok’s wife had told him two days before the April 26 disaster that she was expecting their child. It said Kibenok, 23, was one of 28 firefighters who suffered severe radiation poisoning, and that he died 15 days later - last Sunday.
Five of the 28 have died, the paper said in a vivid account of how a few young men fought the fire from atop the burning reactor 235 feet above ground.
It gave this account:
Kibenok arrived at the power station five minutes after an explosion occurred in the No. 4 reactor building and the fire alarm sounded.
He and Vladimir Pravik, a young comrade, led their teams into the flames. Pravik also has died.
″The battle began with the raging fire that devoured everything. The fire, as they did not know then, was not the most important enemy. ... It was something else, invisible to the eye, perfidious - radiation.″
The scene and the reckless bravery of the young men battling the fire terrified their commander, Leonid Telyatnikov, when he arrived.
Telyatnikov, who now is in a Moscow hospital, was on holiday leave at the time of the accident but took ″the longest drive of his life″ to the fire when he was notified.
″The picture he saw terrified him - an open reactor, and, on top, above its death-carrying breath, at a great height, figures scurrying around.″
Telyatnikov, Kibenok and Pravik were heroes of the battle at the reactor, 80 miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine. The commander used his experience of dozens of difficult fires to direct the dousing of flames that spread from the No. 4 reactor building to the roof of the No. 3 reactor.
As the roof burned, spewing suffocating smoke and sparks that penetrated clothing, Kibenok and Pravik were everywhere to help fight the flames, then ″people got weaker.″
Kibenok, whose uncle is a firefighter and whose father was decorated for rescuing people from a farm blaze, first noticed signs of radiation sickness when he saw his comrade Vladimir Tishchura writhing and squatting.
″After that, Nikolai Vashchuk swayed and fell flat on his back.″
Vashchuk, Tishchura and a third man nearby, Vasily Ignatenko, could no longer fight the blaze. All three have died.
Kibenok and Pravik held out to the last, Kibenok battling for three more hours against flames that threatened to reach the main engine room containing tons of lubricant and power cables connected to the station’s electricity network.
Komsomolskaya’s account described Kibenok as a strong and caring person, a model leader of the Komsomol - the Young Communist League.
British actor Adam Nagaitis played Firefighter Vasily Ignatenko in the HBO television series Chernobyl
Chernobyl Firefighters Memorial