Hidden nuclear accident in the southern Urals. Was there an accident at the Mayak? In the Chelyabinsk region, radiation pollution was recorded. Fighting the consequences of a nuclear accident on the example of Chernobyl

I think you've heard the high-profile story that the radioactive element ruthenium-106 was discovered over Europe at the end of September. A number of sources, including German ones (Germany was one of the first to declare the presence of a radioisotope in the air) claim that the Southern Urals became the source of ruthenium-106. This is a completely probable version, since it is in those places that the Mayak special enterprise still operates, at which a nuclear accident occurred in 1957 - one of the largest in the history of mankind.

So, in today's post, we will find out what ruthenium-106 is, remember the Mayak accident in 1957 and think about what could happen there this fall. Go under the cut, it's interesting there)

What is ruthenium-106.

First, a little about ruthenium, the isotope of which (ruthenium-106) was found in the air.

Ruthenium is an element of the eighth group of the fifth period of the periodic system of chemical elements, atomic number is 44. It was discovered by Kazan University professor Karl Klaus in 1844, who in the same year published a large article on a new element called "Chemical studies of the remains of the Ural platinum ore and metal ruthenium". Klaus isolated pure ruthenium from Ural platinum ore and named the element after Russia (lat. Ruthenia).

Radioactive isotopes of ruthenium do not exist in nature, but are formed as a result of the fission of uranium and plutonium nuclei wherever a chain reaction occurs - in the reactors of nuclear power plants, submarines, and also during the explosion of nuclear bombs. Most of the radioisotopes of ruthenium are short-lived, but two of them - ruthenium-103 and, in fact, ruthenium-106, have rather long half-lives - 40 days and 1 year, respectively.

Special plant "Mayak" and the closed city of Ozyorsk.

The German authorities, one of the first to detect ruthenium-106 in the air, named the southern Urals as a likely place for the release of the radioisotope. If you look at the map, then just at the foot of the Ural Mountains you can see the closed city of Ozersk, which was once called Chelyabinsk-65. In Ozersk there is a special plant "Mayak", where in September 1957 there was a large-scale and terrible accident, which I spoke about in detail here in this post.

One of these "cans" exploded in 1957, destroying the concrete perimeter of the storage - as a result of which all the contents turned out to be outside the storage, at the edge of the plate break, the radioactive background reached 1000 r / h. The wind carried the pollution to the northeast, resulting in the formation of the East Ural radioactive trail, which later became the exclusion zone.

What could happen on « lighthouse » ?

Supporters of the version that the Mayak plant was the cause of the radiation leak give the following chronology of events. On September 19, irradiated nuclear fuel from the VVER-1000 reactor of the Balakovo NPP was taken to Mayak. Photos of this event appeared later in the group "We are from the Lighthouse" in the social network "VKontakte":

On September 22, spent nuclear fuel in a TUK-131O cask was delivered directly to the Mayak radiochemical plant, where testing of new technological equipment began. The tests were completed around October 1-2, about which a separate post was published in the same group:

Following this on the morning of September 25 (i.e. at the time when the testing of new equipment was most likely in full swing) at the city sites of Ozyorsk messages began to appear that on September 25 and 26, the city will conduct a scheduled check of sirens and the transmission of voice messages over the radio network of industrial broadcasting. The following instructions were published on the Ozersk.ru website:

"Attention everyone" alert. When you hear them, you need to:

1. Immediately turn on the TV, radio, radio broadcast loudspeaker.
2. Listen carefully to the emergency message about the situation and the course of action.
3. Keep all these tools constantly on during the entire period of liquidation of accidents, catastrophes or natural disasters.

What could happen at Mayak these days? During testing of new equipment and work with it, a radio leak could occur - and it could be either a simple depressurization or something like an explosion, i.e. completely abnormal situation. The authorities of Ozersk categorically deny that something happened at Mayak, but nevertheless the authorities of the Chelyabinsk region decided to carry out own investigation what happened in the South Urals.

So it goes.

Write in the comments what you think about this.

When it comes to a nuclear accident, Chernobyl, Fukushima or, more rarely, Three Mile Island come to mind. Few people will remember the Kyshtym accident, which affected the Mayak nuclear complex. Be that as it may, she was one of the most serious of her kind. This incident of 1957 (it was not reported to the general public until 20 years later) is resurfacing today: the place of the release of the cloud of ruthenium-106 that reached Europe, apparently, is located somewhere in southern Russia.

Many features of this story are reminiscent of a spy novel. The nuclear complex "Mayak" (the first in the USSR) secretly appeared in the middle of the Siberian forests in 1948, at the beginning of the Cold War. This strategic object was not marked on any of the maps. The same applied to the cities surrounding it, for example, then known as Chelyabinsk-65 Ozersk (80,000 people). All measures were taken to maintain the secrecy of the object, the nearest designated settlement for which was Kyshtym. Its former resident recently told the Le Parisien newspaper about her parents' admonition: "If you tell anyone about this, we will go to jail."

These people were employees of Mayak, where plutonium production was established. This substance is necessary for the production of nuclear weapons, and the USSR did everything to make its production as fast and massive as possible. Environmental and health issues have been sidelined through negligence or a lack of understanding of the implications. At first, liquid radioactive waste was secretly poured into the Techa River, on which the enterprise stood. The catastrophic sanitary and environmental consequences forced the authorities to look for another solution.

Almost 300,000 people under a radioactive cloud

These wastes were at one time stored in a nearby small lake, Karachay, which has become one of the most polluted places in the world. To prevent water pollution, the tanks were built in 1953 to avoid contact of waste with the lake, Science et Vie wrote in September. The concrete-surrounded vaults were provided with a cooling circuit to keep heat-producing fluids from rising in temperature. Be that as it may, the maintenance of the installations is very laborious, and the necessary repairs have not been carried out.

Gaps in maintenance led to a serious accident. All the details of what happened are still unknown, but everything is clear with the general scenario: an uncorrected malfunction in the cooling system led to an increase in temperature to more than 300 degrees with the evaporation of liquid. The pressure in the tanks increased dramatically, which caused an explosion on September 29, 1957.

“It was Sunday. About five o'clock. I went to my brother. I heard an explosion and saw a cloud, ”the former head of the Mayak dosimetry laboratory told the l" Humanité newspaper in 1990. The volume of release was from 70 to 80 tons of waste. Most fell right at the accident site, but some formed a radioactive cloud, which moved to the northeast.It affected about 270,000 people in an area of ​​several thousand square kilometers.Especially strong pollution was recorded in an area of ​​1,000 km2.Now this path of the cloud is sometimes called the "East Ural radioactive trace".

The population began to evacuate only six to ten days after the accident. This time was more than enough for people to receive a serious dose of radiation. Sciences et Vie writes about a 20 km2 zone around the site of the explosion, where all the pines died. A few months later, the population of two dozen villages, about 10,000 people, was taken out. The documents note 200 deaths due to radiation within a few months. However, exact data, as is often the case, is not available. The impact on the environment and the population continued in the future, which was also superimposed by the consequences of pollution of the river as a result of emissions.

Complete secrecy

Be that as it may, the accident was surrounded by absolute secrecy. In the 1960s, the CIA, of course, heard about the object and the incident. Spy plane pilot Gary Powers was shot down while flying in the region. Be that as it may, they decided to keep silent about the incident so as not to exacerbate the already growing distrust in the nuclear industry in North America and Europe after the accident in the UK.

Context

Three questions about the nuclear incident in Russia

Russia admits radioactive leak

Nuclear dust over Europe

Fighting the consequences of a nuclear accident on the example of Chernobyl

Revelations 20 years later

The incident became known only in 1976. Russian biologist Zhores Medvedev, who fled to the UK, wrote an article in the New Scientist newspaper about many of the factors that pointed to the likelihood of a nuclear explosion 20 years earlier in the Kyshtym region. The accident in the results was named after this city, which was then the only one indicated on the map. The scientist supplemented the research with a book published in 1979. The official data was distributed by the IAEA in 1989.

The declassified documents that have appeared since then have made it possible to confirm the fact of the incident. The accident was ranked sixth (out of seven) on the international scale of nuclear events, making it only one step less serious than Chernobyl and Fukushima. Relatives of the victims, including Nadezhda Kutepova, who founded her own NGO abroad, continue to fight for recognition of the accident and payment of financial assistance. A woman living in France today has won dozens of lawsuits in Russia.

The business is still running

Despite this incident and many incidents related to the object (we are talking in particular about the discharge of waste into the water and the drying up of Lake Karachay, which leads to the release of radioactive dust), it continues to work. Today, Mayak is engaged in the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, a large part of which comes from neighboring countries.

People still live in the surrounding cities. Ozersk, the closest to the enterprise (renamed in 1994), is still closed to visitors. According to official data, people were taken out of risk areas where cleanup work was carried out. However, according to a report released by Greenpeace on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the accident, large amounts of waste are still dumped into Techu, and measurements indicate high levels of radiation in neighboring villages. The same applies to some cities from which people have not been taken out. “There were five children in our family. All the rest died. Cancer, ”a resident of the village of Muslyumovo, located 30 kilometers from the enterprise, told the newspaper L "Express in 1990.

On November 20, Russia confirmed that "extremely high" readings of ruthenium-106 had been recorded in the vicinity of the facility in September. Earlier, several European observation centers detected the presence of this radioactive gas in the atmosphere (it does not occur naturally). On Tuesday, Rosatom assured everyone that there were no incidents at its facilities.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

The story of the release of Ruthenium-106 (Ru-106) in Europe began in late September - early October. The presence of this radionuclide in the air was recorded in Germany, France, Austria and three dozen other European countries. On October 6, the French institute IRSN published measurements of Ru-106 at several European meteorological stations at the end of September. The detected levels are much lower than the permissible values ​​and did not pose a threat to human life and health. Later, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) presented the results of measurements in 36 European countries. Ru-106 concentrations were highest in Romania (145 mBq/m 3 ) and Italy (54 mBq/m 3 ), but were well below dangerous levels.

The French scientists modeled the release taking into account the available data and meteorological conditions and made an assumption that the most likely area of ​​the release could be somewhere in the Southern Urals or near it. Later, the area of ​​possible release was expanded to Kazakhstan.

Ru-106 is a man-made beta-emitting radionuclide with a half-life of about a year. It does not exist in nature. It is formed in the nuclear fuel of reactors during the decay of uranium nuclei. It is used for medical purposes for the treatment of oncological diseases, as calibration sources and as a battery for some space satellites.

In response to allegations of a release in Russia, Rosatom Corporation, in an official statement dated October 11, stated that there were no accidents or radiation leaks at Russian nuclear facilities at the time indicated, and that Ru-106 was also found in the air at Russian territory. one of the weather stations near St. Petersburg in an insignificant concentration of only 0.115 mBq / m 3, which is 40 thousand times lower than the permissible values. However, the question of the source of the release remained open.

A few days later, the capital of the Middle Urals, Yekaterinburg, was overwhelmed by a wave of panic in social networks and instant messengers about an alleged accident at the Mayak plant and a nuclear cloud approaching the city. The Mayak production association is located in the neighboring Chelyabinsk region, in the very Southern Urals that the French point to, and is the largest Russian enterprise for the processing of nuclear fuel.

Understanding the situation, the Chelyabinsk authorities, represented by the vice-governor of the region Oleg Klimov, reported on October 19 that ruthenium was found in the air, but it is 200 times less than the standard, so it does not pose a threat. But where he came from - still needs to be figured out.

With the filing of French experts in the public mind, Mayak became the main suspect in the accidental release of ruthenium. The plant is indeed notorious for serious radiation accidents in the past.

On November 20, the story flared up again, about the report of Rosgidomet (which has been in the public domain since October) on observations for the previous month, which confirmed the presence of Ru-106 in the air at two measuring stations near Mayak in the last week of September. In Argayash settlement 46 mBq/m 3 were recorded, and in Novogorny settlement - 18 mBq/m 3 Ru-106. These values ​​are almost 1000 times higher than the usual observed levels, but hundreds of times lower than the permissible activity of Ru-106 according to NRB-99/2009 - the main document regulating the permissible levels of radionuclides in the environment. According to the norms, the allowable content of Ru-106 in the air is 4400 mBq/m 3 , that is, 100 times more than it was recorded. Therefore, the data of Roshydromet only confirms the information voiced earlier by Oleg Klimov in the media and has not been hidden from anyone all this time.

With the filing of French experts in the public mind, Mayak became the main suspect in the accidental release of ruthenium. The plant is indeed notorious for serious radiation accidents in the past. In the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons at the plant, since the early 1950s, radioactive waste was dumped into the Techa River, and in 1957 the most serious radiation accident in the pre-Chernobyl era occurred here - a container with radioactive waste exploded and radionuclides were released over a large territory of the Urals and Siberia . Therefore, people's fears about the Mayak software are understandable; in any incomprehensible situation with radiation, it acts as a common suspect, regardless of how justified these suspicions are.

However, there are a number of points that make it possible to doubt the version of involvement of the Mayak software. The plant does process irradiated fuel, which contains Ru-106. However, in the event of an accident and depressurization of equipment, not only ruthenium would be released, but also a large number of other isotopes from the fuel, much more dangerous - cesium, strontium, plutonium. And they are not in the release. For the same reason, the IAEA itself excludes an accident at a nuclear power plant as a possible source of release.

In addition, according to Roshydromet, the concentrations of Ru-106 around the Mayak plant were at the level of those found in Europe. And even several times lower than the levels of Ru-106 in Romania. If the source of the release was at the Mayak plant, then it would be much dirtier around it than a few thousand kilometers away in Europe. This also suggests the modeling of French specialists, according to which a possible release in the South Ural region should have contained more than 100 TBq of Ru-106. Such an emission power could not have gone unnoticed and would have led to a significant increase in the radiation background, which was not observed.

In a situation of pollution after the release, which the special services would have known for sure, the meeting between Putin and Nazarbayev in Chelyabinsk would not have taken place.

An indirect confirmation of the absence of a serious release in the South Urals at that time can be considered the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the Interregional Cooperation Forum held on November 9 in Chelyabinsk, just 100 km from Mayak. In a situation of pollution after the release, which the special services would have known for sure, this meeting would not have taken place there.

Another version of the release is related to the main use of Ru-106 as a source in medicine. However, PO Mayak is not engaged in the production of such sources. Their main and only manufacturer in Russia is the SSC RIAR in Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Region. However, according to Rosatom, the total activity of Ru-106 produced in Russia for the country's medical institutions since the beginning of 2017 has not exceeded 3.7 GBq. Even if all this amount is sprayed at once, it will be hundreds of thousands of times less powerful than the results of the French model predict.

Another exotic version is associated with the use of ruthenium in spacecraft power supplies. However, the IAEA itself rejects this version, making sure that no spacecraft fell to Earth on these dates.

There remains one more option - abnormal disposal and depressurization of the source with ruthenium-106. However, according to the same Mayak software, a typical source has an activity of about 100 GBq, which is again too much to go unnoticed due to the high background radiation at the release site, but too small to match the release rate according to the French model.

On the other hand, there have been such cases in history when sources with isotopes accidentally fell into the smelter and led to emissions. For example, in 1998, throughout Europe, they were looking for the cause of caesium-137 that appeared in the air. It turned out that a source with this radionuclide accidentally fell into a smelter at a metallurgical plant and literally flew out into the chimney. Moreover, the plant workers themselves did not know about what had happened.

It is possible that we are now dealing with something similar. We still do not know for sure what happened and where. But sooner or later we will find out, just for this we all need a little more patience and trust - both between ordinary people and the authorities, and between Russia and Europe.

* Gorchakov is a nuclear physicist, senior researcher at NPP Eksorb.

In early November, the Institute for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of France reported a radioactive cloud over Europe, which could have appeared due to an accident at a nuclear facility in Russia or Kazakhstan. The leak, according to experts, occurred a month ago. And by the time the incident was announced, the radiation background had almost disappeared. The authorities of the mentioned countries hastened to refute accidents at nuclear enterprises. Over the next two weeks, the source of the leak was not named, but they tried to explain: there are no health risks in the contaminated regions (the Urals, the Volga region, the Rostov region, the regions of Germany, France, Italy and Austria).

In Germany, Austria and Italy September 29 recorded an increased radiation background of the isotope ruthenium-106 (Ru-106), which is formed during the testing of nuclear weapons, nuclear man-made accidents.

October 8 the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection and the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety suggested that the source of ruthenium was in the Southern Urals. At the same time, the authorities ruled out an accident.

Rosatom, which oversees the nuclear industry, stated that "in aerosol samples from September 25 to October 7 in the territory of the Russian Federation, including in the South Urals, Ru-106 was not found, except for a single measurement point in St. Petersburg" . However, according to Rosatom, even there it was negligible.

In early October, Kommersant reported on the reason for the increase in background radiation, citing Nadezhda Kutepova, a human rights activist from Ozersk, who received political asylum in France.

In a commentary to Novaya Gazeta, Nadezhda Kutepova said that her attention was drawn to the response of Rosatom to reports of a radioactive cloud recorded in Germany.

- I found out that on September 25 and 26 at Mayak ( plant for the production of nuclear weapons components in Ozersk, Chelyabinsk region— Ed.) new equipment was being tested, and also that alarms were announced in Ozersk these days,” Kutepova said, citing sources at the enterprise. - The incident could have occurred at the furnace during the vitrification of high-level radioactive waste. It is there that ruthenium is formed, which can be thrown away in its pure form.

However, representatives of the plant said that they are "all right".

After that, rumors appeared in Yekaterinburg that due to an accident at the Mayak plant, a radioactive cloud was moving towards the city. An anonymous message appeared on the social networks of the city, which was allegedly sent by an employee of a chemical and biological plant (spelling preserved).

“Today, in our scientific chemical and biological plant, the director made an announcement (a friend of a colleague works there). In general, in the Chelyabinsk region, an accident occurred at the Mayak, as a result of a radiation cloud that goes to the Ekb. Orientation will arrive tomorrow. Recommendations - close all windows at home and, if possible, not go outside, also living with alcohol, ginseng root and eleutherococcus (in a pharmacy), for adults, warm red wine or cognac in tea. In general, do not panic, the concentration is not such as to cause radiation sickness. But cancer is very strong.”

In response to this, the local Rospotrebnadzor stated that the level of background radiation on the border of the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions does not exceed the permissible level.

November 9 The Institute for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of France released a report in which he spoke about the appearance of a radioactive cloud over Europe in the last days of September.

According to experts, the accident could have occurred in the last week of September in the area between the Volga and the Urals, south of the Ural Mountains, but the exact location cannot be determined. The outbreak may be either in Russia or in Kazakhstan.

The report notes that since October 6, the content of hazardous substances has been decreasing, and at the moment they are not in the air.

Map of the distribution of ruthenium from the Institute for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of France

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Why not Kazakhstan

There are plenty of places in Kazakhstan that could be among the "suspected of a leak": the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site alone is worth something. It is closed, but on its territory there is the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology - this is the city of Kurchatov in the east of the republic, it falls into the zone marked by the French - inside which there is an operating reactor (another one is in Almaty). But on the day the French researchers spoke, the institute's employees immediately officially announced that they had no leaks - neither from the first nor from the second reactor.

There is also the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Almaty, where pharmaceutical preparations are produced (ruthenium, if only an excess of it was recorded, could “leak” just from the pharmacological production), but the local chiefs brushed aside possible accusations with all hands and feet.

At the same time, the institute has one more object - in the west of Kazakhstan, very close to the Russian border, in the city of Aksai. But the director of the institute, Yergazy Kenzhin, in an interview with Radio Azattyk, said that all the accusations against them are unfounded.

- This is an underground training ground, there are adits at a depth of one and a half kilometers and a kilometer. These are former test sites of the USSR, where there were underground nuclear explosions in the 1980s. It was called "the program for the use of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes, the creation of cavities for the storage of petroleum products." Everything is mothballed there, that is, some work related to the release [of radiation] has not been there for decades, 30-40 years. Therefore, there is absolutely no release of radioactivity there,” Azattyk quotes the scientist.

In general, Kazakhstan can be suspected of some kind of leaks quite legitimately, since it is quite closely connected with nuclear energy. In the west of Kazakhstan, in the Aktobe region, there is a military town of Emba-5, where, according to some reports, underground nuclear explosions were also carried out. And what is there now in the mines is a big question, since until the middle of this year the Russian military patronized the city (now the process of withdrawing the Russians and the complete transfer of Emba-5 under the Kazakh leadership is underway). In addition, a nuclear waste bank is being built in Kazakhstan, which is said to be safe for the environment.

And in 2014, in the same West of Kazakhstan, a container with radioactive cesium-137 was lost. They searched for him for three days, and a certain taxi driver found him in a neighboring region, who at night saw a small container in a truck passing by. The official version of the loss is the bottom of the body that fell into the van for transportation, and other drivers found it and thought it was just a can - and took it for themselves.

20 November Roshydromet confirmed: at the end of September, extreme air pollution with the radioactive isotope ruthenium-106 was observed in the Urals, high - in Tatarstan, the Volga region and Rostov-on-Don. In samples of radioactive aerosols, the radioisotope Ru-106 was found (half-life 368.2 days).

On the same day, the Russian Greenpeace asked the prosecutor's office to check the Mayak plant. The organization refers to the data of Roshydromet. “The accidental release of ruthenium-106 at the Mayak plant may be associated with the vitrification of spent nuclear fuel. It is also possible for material containing ruthenium-106 to enter the furnace for melting metals, ”Greenpeace said.

Tuesday, November 21st Rosatom stated that the Mayak production association is not associated with air pollution. The department suggested that the leakage of the substance could have occurred due to a violation of the tightness of the “fuel element” shell in a nuclear reactor or during the radiochemical processing of nuclear fuel.

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Position of Greenpeace and experts

“Roshydromet has published the readings of its stations, but it is not the function of this department to figure out where the emission comes from,” said Rashid Alimov, head of the Greenpeace Russia energy program project. - Therefore, we are writing a request to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, which, in turn, should involve Rostekhnadzor in order to sort out the situation.

According to Alimov, the purpose of the request is to check whether information about the accident was reported to the competent authorities, whether production was stopped and measures were taken to protect the population.

According to the ecologist, it is now impossible to draw final conclusions about what caused the release.

However, like other experts, Rashid Alimov names the Mayak production association as the first in the list of potential sources of pollution. The state enterprise produces components of nuclear weapons, stores and reprocesses spent nuclear fuel. Located in the closed city of Ozersk, Chelyabinsk Region, the enterprise is part of the state corporation Rosatom.

Versions

According to Rashid Alimov, the conclusions made by French researchers, as well as sources at the Mayak enterprise, indicate that the release could have occurred at the spent nuclear fuel vitrification plant.

The technology is used for the complete elimination of by-product radioactive waste and was invented in France. At high temperature and pressure, radioactive liquid and phosphate glass are mixed in the furnace. Radioactive transparent columns are obtained, which are packed in protective cases. According to Rashid Alimov, in 2001, a ruthenium release was recorded in France at just such a production site.

Rashid Alimov voices other versions, however, he believes that the likelihood of such a scenario is minimal. “Theoretically, Russia produces ruthenium for medical needs in Dimitrovgrad (in the Ulyanovsk region) and Obninsk (in the Kaluga region), Alimov explains. — This may explain the pollution recorded in Volgograd and Tsimlyansk.

Other scenarios - though less likely - which experts call - a source of ruthenium-106 getting into the smelting furnace along with scrap metal. “The story when the radioactive source got into the furnace was recorded four years ago in Elektrostal,” the expert notes. - And the least likely options are the fall of a satellite and an accident at a nuclear power plant. But this would lead to the release of not only ruthenium-106, but also other radioactive substances.

Why was a radioactive cloud recorded in Europe? Rashid Alimov draws attention to the message of Roshydromet - it follows from it that there are only 22 stations in Russia that could record emissions. “In our opinion, this is not enough,” commented the expert.

According to Rashid Alimov, it is currently not possible to assess the health threat from the release.

“We don’t know where the highest concentrations were recorded, the scenario of how the cloud moved is not completely known,” he notes. “That’s why we contacted the prosecutor’s office.

About the risk of leakage

“The information about the level of pollution that appear in the media is such that there should be no health concerns,” he commented on the situation. Anatoly Gubin, Head of the Laboratory for Mathematical Analysis of Radiation Effects of the Scientific and Technical Center for Radiation and Technical Safety and Hygiene. “However, the very fact of the detection of contamination suggests that there is not enough hope for the installation where spent fuel is handled.

“Those who were in close proximity to the release site could have received serious damage to health,” the physicist commented on the situation. Oleg Bodrov, head of the environmental organization "Southern Coast of the Gulf of Finland". - It is not a fact that they are informed that they were affected by the release, given the fact that we learned about the accident from French scientists, and not from authorized departments in Russia.

What is Europe afraid of?

The French magazine Le NovelObs cites the reasons why - despite the likely lack of consequences for Europe - the current state of emergency is extremely worrisome. Firstly, “having entrusted the report of the incident to the meteorological service” (Roshydromet), Russian nuclear scientists “went into denial” (as they once did after the Chernobyl disaster), and this cannot but excite their European partners. Since Rosatom denies any involvement in the leaks, this can mean one of two things: either the corporation does not control such incidents, or "or the country's authorities hide" the information.

"Either of these circumstances raises concerns," said Bruno Shareiron, director of the non-governmental Commission for the Search for Independent Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD), which was set up in France after the Chernobyl disaster.

“It is important that the origin of these releases be searched…From this point of view, the lack of information is worrying. If the origin of the releases is unknown, no radiation protection measures can be taken, while the doses received by workers or local residents could be such that they could not be ignored. When it comes to hiding information, the situation is even more problematic,” Shareiron wrote in a CRIIRAD report published on October 5.

In its latest communiqué, released on November 21, CRIIRAD analyzes the release report from Roshydromet.

“And without giving close answers (to emerging questions), the results (published by Roshydromet) raise new questions:

1. Why is the concentration of a substance in the air (on the territory of Russia) at the same level as was found in Romania
2. Why does the level of ruthenium-106 release into the soil, noted by stations located less than 40 km north and south of Mayak, reach a maximum of 330 Bq / m2 (this level was recorded in Metlino) - after all, this is from 100 to 1000 times less than as noted in the IRSN simulations (results released November 9).”

“Today, we are still in complete obscurity,” reports the Commission for the search for independent information on radioactivity.

The Commission also emphasizes that it has already applied to the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency with a demand to “break the silence and intervene”, since “absolute transparency is required” in the investigation of the emergency - “both on the part of the authorities, in particular the Russian Federation, and from expert institutions.

It happened before

Mayak accidents in 1957 and 2007

In 1957, the “Kyshtym accident” occurred at Mayak, which caused radiation pollution over an area of ​​over 20 thousand square kilometers. It became the first man-made radiation emergency in the USSR: during the liquidation, 23 villages with a population of up to 12 thousand people were resettled, their houses, property and livestock were destroyed.

Ten years ago, in 2007, another emergency happened at Mayak. At plant No. 235, where spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed, a pipeline burst occurred. Up to 8 people received the maximum permissible doses of radiation. However, as the Ural media indicate, the company hid this information for more than a month.

It is interesting that at that time information about the causes of the release was published by the same Nadezhda Kutepova, at that time the head of the Planet of Hopes organization. She was born in Ozersk, her father was the liquidator of the accident in 1957. In 2015, Kutepova's Planet of Hope organization was recognized as a foreign agent, she was accused of industrial espionage, and Kutepova received political asylum abroad.

Chernobyl: the USSR confessed under pressure from Europe

The largest nuclear accident occurred at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986. The first reports of the accident in the Soviet media appeared only on April 28, and they were made under pressure, when worried Europeans demanded that the USSR explain the increase in background radiation. Experts from the Swedish nuclear power plant Forsmak were the first in the world to report pollution. Soviet publications publish detailed information about the accident after the May holidays.

Worked on the material: Alisa Kustikova, Alexandra Kopacheva, Vyacheslav Polovinko, Yuri Safronov

In the region of the South Urals in October 2017 there was a powerful release of radiation, but information about the dangerous "cloud" became known only now.

In small quantities, the isotope ruthenium-106 was found on the territory of the countries of the European Union, including France and Germany. According to scientists, the Chelyabinsk region, where the radioactive cloud came from, became the intended release site.

The state corporation "Rosatom" denied these data in October of the year, as there were no confirmed measurements. The official statement said that the radiation situation corresponds to the natural background and is within the normal range. Representatives of the company added that from September 27 to October 8, traces of Ru-106 were found only in St. the concentration was almost 10 thousand times lower than the allowable volumetric activity.

Only on November 20, Roshydromet published a report, according to which, in the period from October 6 to 13, extremely high contamination with the radioactive isotope of ruthenium Ru-106 was recorded in the Chelyabinsk region near the village of Argayash. According to the department, there revealed an excess of background radiation by 986 times compared to last month. Also, a deviation from the norms was revealed in Tatarstan, Rostov-on-Don and the Volga region. The specialists specified that in September-October conditions arose that allowed the transfer of air masses with pollutants from the Southern Urals to the Mediterranean region and to the north of Europe.

A possible source of release is production association "Mayak", which engaged in the manufacture of nuclear weapons components, as well as storage and regeneration of spent nuclear fuel. In 1957, the first radiation accident in the history of Russia took place there.

“The data on contamination with the ruthenium-106 isotope voiced by Roshydromet allow us to conclude that the dose that could be received by a person is 20 thousand times less than the permissible annual dose and does not pose any danger to the health and life of people," the Mayak press service said.

Greenpeace intends to appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia demanding a thorough investigation into the situation. According to environmentalists, we are talking about the deliberate concealment of information about the radiation accident, as well as its impact on the environment.

Rashid Aliyev, a Greenpeace radiation specialist, stated that it's too late for people to protect themselves from radiation. He stressed that it is necessary to understand the accident and prepare for new emissions that may happen in the future. The expert added that the release of ruthenium can provoke an increase in cancer. Nevertheless, Rospotrebnadzor reported on November 21 that the concentration of ruthenium was 200 or more times less than the permissible, so there is no threat to the population.

Alexander Uvarov, editor-in-chief of the Atominfo.ru portal, expressed an alternative version of the excess of the concentration of ruthenium-106 in the atmosphere. He stated that theoretically this can be attributed to the accident of a reconnaissance satellite, which existed with the help of a radioisotope thermoelectric generator.

The Crimean Hydrometeorological Center also reported on the situation with radiation. Experts did not reveal any excess of norms in Crimea last October. It is noted that the power of gamma radiation varied within the background values.

Earlier we wrote that the tests of nuclear bombs conducted by the DPRK in China. A sharp jump was recorded in the area of ​​Changbai-Korean Autonomous County.