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The day Chernobyl died
18/12/2000 14:18 - (SA)
Dmitry Solovyov
Ukraine - The lights finally
went out at the Chernobyl nuclear power station on Friday.
Duty operator Serhiy Bashtovoi, 30, turned a switch on the
command of Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma, and one by one
the bright circular array of lights indicating activity in
reactor Number Three went out.
"The atmosphere in here was very glum," he told Reuters in
an interview in the control room just a few hours after the
shutdown. "A feeling of despair. I guess life goes on."
The official closure of the site of the world's worst
nuclear accident in 1986 was marked by congratulatory messages
from around the world and a gala performance after a lavish
ceremony in the capital Kiev, 125 km (70 miles) away.
Workers watching a television broadcast of the ceremony
reacted with anger and disgust. "Idiots," said one. "We despise
Leonid Kuchma," said another.
However odd it may seem that people would want to work at
the centre of a radioactive no-go zone surrounded by deserted
houses with grass growing through their roofs, the 6 000 staff
of Chernobyl clung to the hope that their jobs provided.
"This reactor was the only one of its type left in
Ukraine," said Bashtovoi. "I just don't have the skills to do
anything else."
Prospects bleak
Another employee, a woman in her 30s who did not want to be
named, cried: "What am I meant to do? I'll turn into a beggar,
become virtually homeless. I have no money."
The government has promised to look after the workers'
social welfare, but in a country where pensions are frequently
paid late or not at all and state coffers are often empty, such
pledges hold little credibility.
It was the Number Four reactor that exploded 14 years ago.
Reactor Two was shut down in 1991 after a fire, and Reactor One
reached the end of its service life in 1996. But Reactor Three limped on, providing energy-poor Ukraine
with five percent of its electricity.
A tour of the control room of the first reactor showed what
lay in store for the years ahead. A draught blew through the
darkened room, with just one black-and-white television monitor
flickering in the corner, showing the reactor hall where some
fuel rods are still stored.
It will take years to remove all the fuel rods from the
reactors, guaranteeing some jobs at least until 2008.
The crumbling concrete sarcophagus encasing the burnt-out
wreck of Reactor Four is also in need of repair. Nobody knows
exactly how much radioactive dust and debris are trapped
inside, but the experts fear the quantities are huge.
Stray dogs now sniff around the complex - once a proud
example of Soviet engineering. They go unheeded by depressed
workers who received cards on Friday congratulating them on
Energy Day - their trade's national day - this Sunday.
Casting a glance at the reactor building, surrounded by fog
and with light drizzle falling, one worker, Serhiy Pavlovsky,
apologised for the lack of hospitality.
"You are always welcome here, but we cannot be as welcoming
as usual," he said. "Today, it is as if someone had died."
- Reuters
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