Full time coded transcript Alexander Zelentsov

 

 

 

00:00:00 – 00:01:00 :black

 

00:01:00 – 00:15:00: titration

Alexander Nikolaevich Zelentsov was the chief operator of reactor n°4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

He was one of the first to arrive on site after the disaster.

He is one of the the 250 people recognized by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) as having received massive doses of radiation at Chernobyl.

 

00:15:08: Titration:

Alexander Nikolaevich Zelentsov,

Chief operator of reactor n°4

 

00:19:20: I came to work at the Chernobyl power plant in 1976.

00:23:12: At that time, the first reactor was being built.

00:27:07: Before that, I had worked in an identical power plant in Leningrad.

00:31:23: Both plants were of the same type.

00:37:05: So, I operated reactors

00:40:15: 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

00:45:07: I expected to be working there until I retired,

00:50:00: and that we would live for a long time in the lovely town of Pripyat.

00:54:07: The power plant was a real technological step forward at the time,

 00:58:21: but the first power plant built, the one in Leningrad, was an experimental model.

01:04:21: It was a big mistake.

01:11:03: It was modelled on military-type reactors.

01:14:06: These were used only to produce plutonium for military purposes.

00:20:18: Then they were just built on a bigger scale,

01:24:09: in order to produce plants that had greater capacity and were more powerful.

01:28:19: That was how the RBMK1000 reactor was made.

01:35:03: We were living in Pripyat, a really nice place.

01:38:03: The town had been built specially for the people who would be working at the power plant.

01:43:21: The average age of the people living there was 26.

01:47:00: Just imagine what it was like !

01:50:03: For every citizen, 100 roses had been planted.

01:54:20: There were literally flowers everywhere, especially in summer.

02:03:11: The architecture and all the facilities were modern.

02:08:10: We were very proud of our town.

02:13:07: The famous Spartak football team from Kiev

02:16:17: used to come to Pripyat to train, because

02:20:00: we had the best sports facilities in the country.

02:28:16: I worked as chief operator at n°4 reactor.

02:34:10: On April 26th, I was due to start at 8 a.m.

02:40:00: The chief operator who was in charge of the shift

02:44:00: from midnight to 8 a.m. was Valery Khodemchuk.

02:48:00: He was there when the explosion happened, and he was buried under the rubble.

02:52:13: His body was never recovered.

 

02:56:09 -  03:05:23: Titration

April 26th,  1:24 a.m.

The heart of reactor n°4 melted down.

A serious fire broke out.

The radioactivity could no longer be contained.

This was a major nuclear incident, level 7 on a scale of 1 to 7.

 

03:07:15: I think I got the phone call at 2 a.m.

03:12:13: It was the foreman of the power plant, Minin Volodia.

03 :16 :13 : He told me there had been an accident in the power plant.

03:20:00: They sent a bus to fetch me.

03:23:18: In that sort of situation, you don’t ask questions…

03:27:00: I got dressed and grabbed something to eat.

03:30:15: Then I went to the bus stop, where my colleagues were already waiting.

03:35:02: We got on the bus and drove to the power plant.

03:40:15: By the time we left the town, the plant had already been closed down.

03:45:15: Barriers had been put up, and there were policemen in overalls.

03:49:20 : We weren’t expecting that…

03:52:21: I remember seeing 8 ambulances go past, going the other way.

03:57:00: In the town there were soldiers who were washing everything with detergent.

04:01:06: Of course, that got us alarmed.

04:12:20: There were four of us in the bus going to the power plant.

04:18:01: We had been talking, then all of a sudden we stopped…

04:22:00: Nobody said a word.

04:24:14: We were all thinking the same thing.

04:27:20: Then one of us said,

04:32:08: “It’s really serious. The whole of Europe will be affected!”

04:38:02: We knew that it wasn’t just an ordinary incident.

04:43:00: It was a real disaster, and the consequences would be extremely serious.

04:50:11: Unit 4 had been completely destroyed.

04:53:21: Black smoke was coming out of the ruins.

04:58:01: Being a physicist, and knowing the power plant like the back of my hand,

05:03:02: I immediately realized that the main part of the reactor

05:07:11: had been damaged.

05:11:11: At the time, there were between 210 and 230 tons of radioactive fuel in there,

05:16:11: plus all the radioactive waste that was stocked in a building next to it.

05:21:01: All that was left now was a huge crater.

05:28:00: Straight away, I thought of Pripyat…

05:32:00: My 5-year-old son was there.

05:36:13: I realized that I had to do something so that he would be saved.

05:45:00: So, I went through a checkpoint.

05:48:10: Only a few selected people were being allowed into the plant.

05:51:00: The chief engineer gave us our instructions.

05:54:05: The military staff in charge were installed inside a bunker.

05:57:14: That was where they issued orders from.

06:00:12: I had to put on white overalls.

06:05:22: The foreman and I made our way towards Unit 4,

06:10:19: the one that had been destroyed.

06:14:17: On the way there, we saw people who had been irradiated.

06:19:00: They couldn’t even walk unaided.

06:23:06: Their faces were red and swollen.

06:28:05: They were vomiting and passing out.

06:33:07: We gathered them together with us.

06:37:20: Our first concern was to find

06:41:12: my colleague, Valery Khodemchuk.

06:48:01: Our second was to stop more accidents happening.

06:52:00: The units in which reactors 3 and 4 were housed were connected :

06:55:22: there was no wall between them.

06:59:04: We had to make the zone safe

07:03:15: by separating and isolating the two reactors.

07:08:06: So we had to close everything down

07:11:21: and deactivate manually once we got there.

07:15:02: At first, I was working with the operators from Unit 5, but they were already

07:18:18: suffering from radiation exposure and were passing out, one after the other.

07:23:11: Then my colleagues from Unit 4 arrived and took over from them.

07:30:09: From the inside, the sight was even more terrifying.

07:34:00: The framework of the building had been crushed like a box of matches.

07:41:14: Above our heads there were concrete slabs

07:45:08: which might fall down at any minute.

07:50:08: We were afraid, but it had to be done.

07:53:22: Because if the incident spread to the other three reactors,

07:58:10: the catastrophe would be even greater.

08:04:08: It was around 11:30 when I realized…

08:08:21: I was worn out. I had gone back to Unit 3,

08:13:05: to receive my instructions.

08:17:16: On the way back to report to my boss, I tried to catch hold of a radiator, then I collapsed.

08:23:04: I don’t remember what happened, but that’s what I was told.

08:27:08: The other guys caught me, but I passed out and became unconscious.

08:31:04: I woke up in the emergency medical station, where I was given some injections.

08:37:09: An ambulance took me back to Pripyat,

08:40:20: where I was treated for acute radiation over the next three months.

08:47:05: That was my last day at the plant.

08:49:20: I thought that, after that, all I would be fit for was retirement.

08:55:00: During that time, my son went to stay with

0858:04: my mother-in-law in the region of Briansk.

09:03:15: And my wife came to work on the plant with the task force that was responsible

09:07:08: for shutting it down completely and for building the concrete sarcophagus.

09:13:09: She worked there for 18 months, and she also became a « Chernobyl invalid ».

09:22:00: The State gave us new apartments to live in.

09:26:15: We had to choose between Kiev and Moscow.

09:31:06: But these apartments had originally been destined for other people.

09:38:00: Imagine that you’ve been given a apartment,

09:40:19: and then at the last minute, just as you’re about to move in,

09:44:20: someone decides that it will be given to people coming from the Pripyat zone. 

09:50:00: What’s more, people accused us of being responsible

09:53:17: for what happened at the plant.

09:57:00: They were resentful, they felt that it was unfair.

10:02:05: They said,

10:03:20:“Not only did they blow up the plant,

10:07:06: but now we have to give them our apartments”.

10:11:16: I remember one time,

10:14:20: my son Maxim was running after another kid in the playground,

10:18:20: and he shouted to him : « I’ll spit on you and you’ll be contaminated ! »

10:23:02: Our kids were discriminated against.

10:25:06: The others called us “The Radioactive People”.

10:28:12: They said we wouldn’t have long to live.

10:31:18: That’s how it was in the first 18 months.

10:35:20: After that, the kids grew up and people’s attitudes changed.

10:41:02: But at first it was really tough.

10:43:10: One day I was in the bus,

10:45:20: and as we passed by the apartments that had been given to the people from Pripyat,

10:49:16: someone said,

10:51:20: “Why do they bother putting up curtains?

10:55:09: They’ll be dead within a month”.

10:59:09: That’s how it was.

11:03:10: Ten years or so ago, my son Maxim went back to Pripyat.

11:10:20: He went with a girl, one of his schoolmates.

Now she’s my daughter-in-law.

11:16:04: They went inside the zone, to Kriysatichi and Pripyat.

11:25:00: My son had never been back since we were evacuated in 1986.

1:29:09: He was only just 5 years old at the time.

11:32:00: He went through the streets,

11:34:12: and he stopped outside our apartment block.

11:37:14: He recognized the windows of our apartment.

11:40:12: He went inside, and went up to where our apartment was.

11:44:20: It still had our name on it,

11:49:04: written on the doorbell.

11:53:14: At the time, all the residents had their names written next to their doors.

11:59:14: And so my name was still there, next to the door :

12:04:04: Zelentsov Alexander Nikolaevich and family,

12:08:20: apartment n°45.

12:11:20: He was only a little boy when we left, but still he remembered it all, the slightest details.

 

12 :21 :00  -  12 :31 : 16 : TITRATION

According to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), radiation from the Chernobyl disaster has been responsible for a total of 4,000 deaths.

According to the NYAS (New York Academy of Science), the real figure is more like 1 million.