Kyshtym accident

The Kyshtym accident occurred on September 29, 1957 in the Mayak nuclear power plant ( Russian производственное объединение "Маяк" ), a facility for the industrial production of fissile material in the Soviet Union . As the only nuclear accident at level 6 on the International Rating Scale for Nuclear Events (INES 6), it is considered the third worst accident in history after the disasters of Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011), both of which are categorized as INES 7. In the event, which is named after the nearby Russian city of Kyshtym , very large amounts of radioactive substances were released.

Accident

The highly radioactive liquid residues that had accumulated during the processing of the spent uranium fuel rods to extract the fissile ²³⁹ Pu were stored in large tanks. These have to be cooled because of the decay heat generated by the radioactive decay of the substances. When, in the course of 1956, the cooling lines of one of these 300 cubic meter tanks leaked and the cooling system failed, the contents of this tank began to dry out. On September 29, 1957, the spark from an internal control device triggered an explosion of the crystallized nitrates . It was a chemical (not nuclear) explosion that released large amounts of radioactive material. These included long-lived isotopes such as B. ⁹⁰ Sr ( half-life 29 years), ¹³⁷ Cs (30 years) and ²³⁹ Pu (24,110 years).

Ostural Trail in Russia

Area contaminated by the Kyshtym accident (Ostural Trail)

Warning of radioactive contamination in the protected area established in 1966

According to the production company Mayak and the authorities, material with a radioactivity of 400 PBq (4 · 10 ¹⁷  Bq) was distributed over an area of ​​around 20,000 km² as a result of the accident . In terms of radioactivity of the material released, the accident is therefore comparable to the Chernobyl disaster . Other sources speak of significantly higher doses of radioactivity. About 90% of the radioactive material remained on the premises, 10% was distributed by the wind up to 400 km in a northeasterly direction ( fallout ) and formed the so-called Ostural Trail (see figures).

Around 270,000 people lived in the affected area of ​​20,000 km². An area of ​​about 1000 km², which was contaminated with more than 74 kBq per square meter with ⁹⁰ Sr, was evacuated seven to ten days later. Various sources speak of 600 to 1200 affected people. The mean equivalent dose to the bone marrow of the 1,054 residents of the three closest villages was about 570  mSv . Eight months later, another 6,500 people were brought to safety due to contamination of their food. A total of around 10,700 people were resettled. A large number of these people were not specifically medically monitored, so that no reliable statements can be made about the health consequences for people from the evacuated areas.

According to the INES scale, the accident of 1957 represents an event in the second highest category 6. According to the Helmholtz Center in Munich , the effects of the accident were underestimated for a long time. According to more recent estimates, the accident would have to be rated INES 7, which would make it the first accident at the highest level before the Chernobyl disaster.

In contrast to the Chernobyl disaster, the material was distributed locally to regionally. The violent graphite fire in Chernobyl carried a large part of the radionuclides high up into the atmosphere, while a cloud near the ground formed near Mayak due to lower thermals. The high concentration of radioactivity, inadequate education of the population, the inadequate evacuation of the area and inadequate decontamination resulted in high levels of damage in the affected region. An exact number of victims cannot be given because there are no reliable studies and investigations. A comparative calculation based on the radioactive exposure specified by the authorities comes to around 1000 additional cancer cases from the accident. That is about 10 percent of the population living in the sparsely populated region at the time.

public perception

Memorial to the rescue workers of the Kyshtym accident

According to witness reports, the explosion is said to have been visible as a glowing glow hundreds of kilometers away and was declared as weather lights and aurora borealis in Soviet newspapers of the time. In later publications Shores Medvedev described the process as a "volcanic explosion".

Because Western Europe was affected and the associated extensive media coverage of the reactor fire in Chernobyl, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 is viewed by many as the most serious nuclear accident, as the Mayak accident did not reach the public. The accident could be hushed up until the 1970s, as the contamination was regionally limited to the Urals and no measurable effects from radioactive fallout in Western Europe were detectable. The first information came to the western public through an article by the Soviet journalist and dissident Shores Medvedev in New Scientist magazine in 1976. In 1979 Medvedev published his reports and analyzes in the book Report and Analysis of the Hitherto Secret Nuclear Catastrophe in the USSR , but erroneously assumed an atomic explosion. The Medvedev revelations were questioned by Western scientists at the time. Medvedev himself suspected an interest in making nuclear power appear harmless, since nuclear power plants were being built in many Western countries at that time. The Soviet leadership only officially admitted what had happened in 1989.

Contamination today

→ Main article : Mayak nuclear facility

The accident released large amounts of radioactive material. In another incident in which radioactively contaminated sediment dust was carried from Lake Karachay into the surrounding area by winds in 1967 , part of the material fell again in the areas already affected by the Kyshtym accident. A scientific study by the Russian and Norwegian governments in 1997 came to the conclusion that since 1948 of Mayak ⁹⁰ Sr and ¹³⁷ Cs with a total activity of 8.9 Exa Becquerel (EBq, 8.9 · 10 ¹⁸  Bq) in the Environment. In addition, there are emissions of other radioactive elements such as ²³⁹ Pu. Environmental organizations estimate that around 500,000 people were exposed to increased radiation doses as a result.

Due to the radioactive exposure of the workers and the population through the operation of the plant, more and more investigations into the effects of such radioactive loads on people have been carried out there in recent years, also because an above-average number of women work or have worked in Mayak compared to similar plants.

The radioactive contamination of the region has been the subject of investigation since August 1, 2005 by the international research project Southern Urals Radiation Risk Research (SOUL) . The Helmholtz Center in Munich is responsible for coordination .

See also

• List of accidents in nuclear facilities
• List of nuclear power plants

literature

• Igor Kudrik, Aleksandr Nikitin, Charles Digges, Nils Bøhmer, Vladislav Larin, Vladimir Kuznetsov: The Russian Nuclear Industry - The Need for Reform. Bellona Report Volume 4: 2004. (PDF; 3.0 MB) Bellona Foundation, November 1, 2004, pp. 47–69 , accessed on April 24, 2010 (English). 
• Zhores Medwedjew: Report and analysis of the nuclear catastrophe in the USSR, which has been kept secret so far (German by Anne Herbst-Oltmanns. With a foreword by Robert Jungk). Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1979, ISBN 3-455-08888-0 .
• Carola Paulsen: Morbidity in 80 residents of the Techa River (Southern Urals) who have accidentally been chronically exposed to radiation since 1949 . Ulm University, 2001, (dissertation Ulm University, December 6, 2001), vts.uni-ulm.de (PDF; 1.9 MB; 253 pages).
• Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, Oleg A. Bukharin: Making the Russian Bomb - From Stalin to Yeltsin. (PDF; 2.2 MB) Natural Resources Defense Council, 1995, accessed on August 8, 2018 . 
• Nils Boehmer, Thomas Nilsen: Reprocessing plants in Siberia. In: Bellona Working Paper 4: 1995. 1995, archived from the original on December 22, 2001 ; accessed on November 14, 2010 (English). 

Web links

Commons : Mayak nuclear facility  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Homepage of PO Mayak: Производственное объединение "Маяк" сегодня (Russian)
• SOUL: Southern Urals Radiation Risk Research , multilateral research project coordinated by Helmholtz Zentrum München
• Documentation by Greenpeace (English, 2002) ( Memento from October 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Greenworld Russia: Contaminated Land - The Mayak Nuclear Plant . Documentary, Russia 2009, 31 min., Russian with German subtitles

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Stephan Dörner, dpa: What is behind the disaster scale. Handelsblatt, April 12, 2011, accessed on April 12, 2011 . 
2. ↑ Christian Kocourek: In camera. ten.de, archived from the original on April 10, 2011 ; Retrieved April 12, 2011 . 
3. ↑ Richard Stone: Retracing Mayak's Radioactive cloud . In: Science . tape 283 , no. 5399 , 1999, pp. 164 , doi : 10.1126 / science.283.5399.164 .
4. ↑ Background information: 50 years of the Kysthym radiation accident. Helmholtz Zentrum München, press release of September 20, 2007
5. ^ William J. Standring, Mark Dowdall, Per Strand: Overview of Dose Assessment Developments and the Health of Riverside Residents Close to the “Mayak” PA Facilities, Russia . In: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health . tape 6 , no. 1 , 2009, p. 174-199 , doi : 10.3390 / ijerph6010174 .
6. ↑ Thomas B. Cochran, Robert Standish Norris, Kristen L. Suokko: Radioactive Contamination at Chelyabinsk-65, Russia . In: Annual Review of Energy and the Environment . No. 18 , 1993, p. 507-528 , doi : 10.1146 / annurev.eg.18.110193.002451 .
7. ↑ Tatiana Sazykina, Ivan I. Kryshev: Radiation effects in wild terrestrial vertebrates e the EPIC collection . In: Journal of Environmental Radioactivity . No. 88 , 2006, p. 11-48 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jenvrad.2005.12.009 .
8. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, Oleg A. Bukharin: Making the Russian Bomb - From Stalin to Yeltsin. (PDF; 2.2 MB) Natural Resources Defense Council, 1995, pp. 65-109 , archived from the original on December 14, 2010 ; accessed on November 14, 2010 (English). 
9. ^ International Atomic Energy Agency : INES - The international nuclear and radiological event scale. (PDF; 193 kB) Information Series / Division of Public Information 08-26941 / E. Accessed on March 13, 2011 (English). 
10. ↑ Helmholtz-Zentrum-München , Interview with Peter Jacob, September 25, 2007 (with MP3 podcast and PDF)
11. ↑ Stephanie Cooke: Atom - the history of the nuclear age . 2010, p. 177
12. ↑ Zhores Medvedev: Report and analysis of the nuclear disaster in the USSR, which has been kept secret so far. , Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg, 1979, quoted after tens of thousands were contaminated - reactor safety and reactor accidents in the Eastern Bloc . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1979 ( online ).
13. ↑ ^{a b} Henning Sietz: The Menetekel from Mayak . In: Die Zeit , No. 34/2007, No. 34, p. 70
14. ↑ Heinz-Jörg Haury: First serious nuclear accident. The trail of Mayak . In: FAZ , September 29, 2007
15. ↑ Manfred Quiring: The best-hushed GAU in history. In: Welt Online . September 26, 2007, accessed February 21, 2011 . 
16. ↑ Shores Medvedev in an interview in the film Nightmare Atomic Waste by Eric Guéret, broadcast on October 13, 2009 on arte
17. ^ Rob Edwards: Russia's Toxic Shocker . In: New Scientist . December 6, 1997, p. 15 ( chargeable ).
18. ↑ Igor Kudrik, Aleksandr Nikitin, Charles Digges, Nils Bøhmer, Vladislav Larin, Vladimir Kuznetsov: The Russian Nuclear Industry - The Need for Reform. Bellona Report Volume 4: 2004. (PDF; 3.0 MB) Bellona Foundation, November 1, 2004, pp. 47–69 , archived from the original on February 15, 2010 ; accessed on April 24, 2010 (English). 
19. ↑ L. Anspaugh, M. Degteva, E. Vasilenko: Mayak Production Association: Introduction. In: Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, Issue 41, Number 1 March 1, 2002, pp. 19-22 , accessed November 10, 2010 (English). 
20. ^ Southern Urals Radiation Risk Research. In: helmholtz-muenchen.de. Archived from the original on September 11, 2010 ; accessed on August 10, 2010 . 
21. ^ Southern Urals Radiation Risk Research - Contractors t ( Memento of October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 55 ° 41 ′ 37.1 ″  N , 60 ° 48 ′ 15.6 ″  E