Lighthouse accident. Near Chelyabinsk there was a powerful release of radiation. Russia admits radioactive leak

In the area of ​​the village of Argayash, the radiation background was exceeded by 986 times

Extremely high contamination of the environment with the radioactive isotope of ruthenium Ru-106 was recorded in the Chelyabinsk region in September-October. On the website of Roshydromet, this is reported as one of the points in the report of the department, along with a deficiency of dissolved oxygen in the Vyazma River and zinc ion pollution of the Argazinsky reservoir in the Urals. The most significant excess of the radiation background was recorded in the area of ​​the village of Argayash - 986 times compared to the previous month. In the neighboring settlement Novogorny - 440 times. However, the total beta activity is recorded in samples of radioactive aerosols and fallout at all posts in the South Urals.

Radioactive cloud reached Europe

From September 29 to October 3, Ru-106, according to Roshydromet, was detected in small quantities in the territory of the EU countries. According to Znak.com, information about the radioactive cloud that came from Russia to Western Europe began to come from Germany and France at the end of September - precisely with an indication that the Chelyabinsk region was a likely source of radiation.

Regional authorities denied the fact of a dangerous release

Despite the statements of foreign scientists, the administration of the Chelyabinsk region, sanitary doctors and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, as the newspaper notes, denied the problem and, presumably, did not take any emergency measures. Regional Public Security Minister Yevgeny Savchenko later said that the administration had not received information about the hazardous release from Roshydromet. “When there was a wave in the press about ruthenium, we requested information from Rosatom and Rosgidromettsentr [Roshydromet]. There were only hesitation, but since there was no danger, they did not consider it necessary to warn us, - he said in an interview with Ura.ru. - Sources of stuffing information were located in France, where there is a company competing with our "Mayak" for the processing of nuclear waste. Leads to certain thoughts.

Rosatom admits release of ruthenium, but not from a Russian source

“The radiation situation around all nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation is within normal limits and corresponds to the natural background radiation,” Rosatom told Rossiyskaya Gazeta in October. - The data obtained from the radiation monitoring system of Roshydromet indicate that Ru-106 was not found in aerosol samples from September 25 to October 7 on the territory of the Russian Federation, including the South Urals, except for the single measurement point in St. Petersburg". However, the state corporation did not deny the IAEA data on the fixation of the ruthenium isotope in Europe, especially in its eastern part - over Romania.

Photo: Alexander Kondratyuk / RIA Novosti

The source of pollution may be located at the Mayak plant

Near the settlements of Argayash and Novogorny there is a production association "Mayak". The company is engaged in the storage of nuclear waste and the production of components for nuclear weapons. There information about the release was not confirmed. Oleg Klimov, deputy governor of the region, stood up for the enterprise. He explained to the agency that the ruthenium released during the reprocessing of nuclear fuel contains impurities of other radioactive isotopes, and they should have been fixed with him in the event of an accident at Mayak. Greenpeace suggested that nuclear waste brought in for processing was the source of contamination. “The accidental release of ruthenium-106 at the Mayak plant may be associated with the vitrification of spent nuclear fuel,” environmentalists noted. “It is also possible for material containing ruthenium-106 to enter the metal melting furnace.” A Znak.com source in Ozersk at the Mayak enterprise agreed with this probability: “The wind rose goes just from the industrial zone of the enterprise towards Argayash, so the news is not very positive.”

Greenpeace will appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office demanding a thorough investigation

This is a deliberate concealment of data on a radiation accident and its impact on the environment, Greenpeace is sure. Ecologists reported on the preparation of an application to the Prosecutor General's Office. Supervisory authorities, in their opinion, should force Rosatom to investigate and publish information about incidents at Mayak and other enterprises where ruthenium could be released.

Photo: Alexander Kondratyuk / RIA Novosti

The consequences of the impact on human health will appear in six months

It is already too late for residents to protect themselves from radiation, according to Greenpeace radiation specialist Rashid Aliyev. “Now the question is to find out exactly what and where specifically happened in order to be prepared for new emissions and understand their health consequences,” he told the publication. The release of ruthenium can, in particular, provoke a surge in oncological diseases.

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 Forum of Interregional Cooperation, which took place 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 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.

Roshydromet admitted that in late September-early October there was an "extreme" radiation contamination with ruthenium-106 in the south of the Urals. According to the service, from September 26 to October 1, radiation pollution in the village of Argayash, which is located near the Mayak plant for the production of nuclear weapons components, exceeded the norm by 986 times. About what ruthenium-106 is, how hazardous it is to health, how widely it can spread, and also what to do in case of contamination, answers URA.RU.

Where did the rumors about radiation contamination in the Urals come from?

In early October, German experts sounded the alarm. They noticed an increase in the concentration of ruthenium-106 from September 29 to October 3 in the atmosphere of all European countries, "starting from Italy and continuing to the north of Europe." According to them, the source of the release was in the Chelyabinsk region. In response to a statement from Germany, Rosatom reported that the radiation situation near all facilities of the Russian nuclear industry is "within the normal range."

Deputy Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Oleg Klimov also denied that ruthenium-106 could have entered Europe from enterprises in the region. On November 21, Roshydromet was forced to confirm the fears of its European colleagues. However, after a few hours, he began to refute his own statement. The head of Roshydromet, Maxim Yakovenko, said at a TASS conference that "the concentration of ruthenium is thousands of times lower than the permissible norm" and does not pose a danger to human health. Greenpeace Russia has already sent a letter to the prosecutor's office with a request to check the possible concealment of the radiation accident and information about the state of the environment.

one of the isotopes of ruthenium. In nature, it does not exist on its own, but is formed as a result of the fission of uranium and plutonium nuclei in the reactors of nuclear power plants, submarines, ships, during the explosions of atomic bombs. In nuclear power plants, when burning uranium blocks, a kind of ash is formed - it is ruthenium.

Ruthenium-106 has a fairly narrow-profile application. It is used in generators that are made for satellites. In addition, the isotope is used in the treatment of radiation sickness, in particular, in the treatment of eye tumors.

Why is ruthenium-106 infection dangerous for humans?

Such emissions are fraught with mass death of people, says the head of the Center for Legal and Psychological Assistance in Extreme Situations, Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences Mikhail Vinogradov, who took part in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident.

“The influence of radiation is very dangerous - it causes many serious diseases, primarily oncological and cardiovascular diseases. There is a special risk for people who ended up in the very heart of the accident, ”Vinogradov told URA.RU. He also noted that ailments may not appear immediately, but after some time - it all depends on the dose of radiation received by the person. According to him, fortunately, now there are modern drugs that can minimize the damage to the health of people in the affected area.

At the same time, Vinogradov called the “very strange” behavior of Roshydromet, which refuted his own data: “All this is even more reminiscent of Chernobyl - then the authorities were also strenuously silent, fearing mass panic.”

State Duma deputies, meanwhile, suggest not to panic. Thus, Alexei Kurinny, a member of the RF State Duma committee on health protection, Candidate of Medical Sciences, said that "in the fixed concentrations, the release of ruthenium does not pose a danger to people." “However, it is clear that there was an outburst, it must be admitted. But no one yet understands what and where happened. There are no answers to this question,” he told URA.RU.

Which regions have experienced extreme contamination?

Ultimately unknown. According to initial information, Roshydromet recorded pollution at two observation points - the villages of Argayash and Nagorny in the Chelyabinsk region. In the first, the radiation background of the previous month was exceeded by 986 times, in the second - by 440 times, which corresponds to the level of "extremely high pollution." It is impossible to establish the entire territory of infection until its source is finally known.

Andrey Nagibin, chairman of the board of the All-Russian public organization Green Patrol, says that the top priority now is to find the source of infection. “The Mayak enterprise refuses to admit its guilt, referring to the fact that ruthenium-106 has not been involved in its production cycle for many years. We don’t know anything about ruthenium, we even have very few relevant specialists, ”the expert explained to URA.RU.

Alexander Saversky, president of the Patient Protection League, also speaks about the urgent search for the source of infection. “We need to understand the scale of the accident, its epicenter and the exact affected areas. Perhaps many people already need evacuation and further treatment. In this case, you can not hesitate." According to him, it is necessary to involve independent authoritative experts in the work, because "our state cannot boast of honesty in relation to the population."

What will happen to the infected territories?

Co-Chairman of the International Socio-Ecological Union Valery Brinikh believes that it is too late to panic: “If the release occurred a month ago, then this indicates only one thing - people received their dose of radiation, water and food were contaminated. Now we need to find out which territories were in the zone of infection.”

He explained to URA.RU that the half-life of a harmful substance is approximately 80 million years.

“That is, it makes no sense to say that the contaminated territories can be decontaminated. Probably, many settlements in the epicenter of the accident will have to be demolished, people will have to be evacuated, taken out of the infection zone,” the ecologist explained. However, according to the chemical table of ruthenium isotopes, it still takes a little over a year for ruthenium-106 to decay.

Co-Chairman of the Union of Ecological Organizations of Moscow Andrey Frolov told URA.RU that the nature of the accident suggests that the infection that has occurred is forever, it will never be possible to “cleanse” the affected territories. “It is simply impossible to extract such an amount of ruthenium from nature. This release, in my opinion, is enough to poison all of humanity. Now it is necessary to carry out a detailed analysis - what exactly happened, what scale of the disaster is in question. Most likely, along with ruthenium, emissions of other isotopes also occurred, which simply decay faster, ”Frolov explained.

According to him, the consequences of the accident can be the most monstrous:

“I do not rule out that we are faced with a second Chernobyl. Then, too, everyone was silent for a long time, pretending that nothing had happened. Our officials always prefer to remain silent.”

He also noted that almost all the people who took part in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster at the Totsk test site died within twenty years.

Brinich believes that it is necessary to organize a full-scale medical examination of the population. In addition, all products manufactured in the South Urals must undergo increased radiation control.

Where else is ruthenium precipitation found?

Roshydromet notes that at the end of September all the necessary meteorological conditions were in place for "an active transfer of air masses and pollutants from the territory of the Southern Urals and Southern Siberia to the Mediterranean region and then to the north of Europe." However, the situation there does not look so intimidating.

German scientists note that the concentration of this isotope in the most “polluted” city of Germany, Görlitz, was only about 5 millibequerels per cubic meter of air (Bq / m3). Even with constant inhalation of air with such a content of ruthenium for a week, its dose will be lower than natural background radiation in one hour.

In Russia, on September 26-27, Roshydromet recorded the decay products of ruthenium-106 in Tatarstan, and on September 27-28, samples were found to be contaminated in Volgograd and Rostov-on-Don. However, the level of pollution does not pose a serious threat to the health of the inhabitants of these regions.

Brinich recalls that during Chernobyl, the authorities tried to prevent the contamination of large cities. “When a radioactive cloud went from Chernobyl to Moscow, it was artificially precipitated with the help of reagents, and the maximum amount of precipitation in the form of rain fell in the Bryansk region. As a result, it was the Bryansk forests that turned out to be heavily infected, ”the expert notes.

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 threats to health 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, said that "in aerosol samples from September 25 to October 7 in the territory of the Russian Federation, including the South Urals, Ru-106 was not found, except for the only 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 the ZATO 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

reaction

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.

reaction

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