More than six months have already passed since the formation of a radiation contamination zone as a result of the accident at the nuclear units of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. After the accident and the formation of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, this is the second territory in the history of mankind from which it was evacuated civilian population due to an accident at an operating nuclear power plant. The population was evacuated from areas with a radius of 20 km around the destroyed nuclear power plant. 78,000 people were evacuated from this part of the contaminated zone. Let us note that in total, including the 30 km radius of temporary population resettlement, about 140,000 people were evacuated. The distribution of contamination and the formation of evacuation zones in the area of the Fukushima nuclear power plant is shown in the figure (the indicated dashed isolines indicate the expected accumulated radiation doses - mSv; the eviction of the civilian population was carried out on this basis).
Borders of the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant - 1. And traces of the spread of the release.
Chronology of evacuation from the contaminated zone after the accident at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant
The evacuation of the population from the infection zone was carried out in several stages. The regime for carrying out evacuation measures took into account the territorial location relative to the epicenters of radiation emissions - in nearby areas (up to 3 km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant) evacuation was carried out almost immediately, in more remote areas the command was given to adhere to a regime that excluded citizens from staying outside their homes for a long time. As the situation worsened and the risk of radiation emissions increased, the Japanese government made decisions to increase evacuation zones around the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Below is the chronology of the evacuation:
- March 11 at 21.23 – the evacuation of the population from a zone with a radius of 3 km around the nuclear power plant and the sheltering of citizens in a 10 km zone were announced.
- March 12 at 5.44 - a decision was made to evacuate the population from a 10 km zone around the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, but by the evening it was decided to expand the evacuation territory.
- March 12 at 18.25 - it was decided to evacuate the population from the 20 km zone around the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. On the same day, the population was evacuated from the probable contamination zone of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant - 2 - the evacuation was carried out from a 10 km zone.
- March 15 – Local emergency response authorities carry out iodine prophylaxis during mandatory evacuation in cities, towns and villages within the 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
- March 25 – voluntary resettlement from a 20-30 kilometer radius around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was announced.
- April 20, 2011– The Japanese Cabinet Secretary announced, de facto recognized, the existence of a 20 km exclusion zone around the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. This day should be considered the date of formation of the Fukushima exclusion zone.
Analogies and differences between the Japanese exclusion zone and Chernobyl
Despite the huge geographical, landscape, technical, socio-political differences in place and society, the formation of the FAPP exclusion zone is in many ways similar to those processes that took place in the Chernobyl region of the Ukrainian SSR in April - May 1986. (see also material about).
Amazingly, before the accident at the nuclear power plant, the territories of the Fukushima province were famous high level conducting organic (ecological) farming and were world famous in the field of green tourism. The same can be said about the territories that found themselves in the zone of radiation contamination after the Chernobyl accident. The Chernobyl region, before the Chernobyl accident, was famous for its recreational opportunities - it was a famous place for recreation, fishing, hunting for Kiev residents, the elite of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and high-ranking officials.
Second– evacuation strategy – the order of eviction of territories depending on the distance from the source of radiation release is also similar to evacuation from the contaminated zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The city and village of Yanov, located in close proximity, were evacuated 36 hours after the Chernobyl accident. During the first week, settlements within the 10 km zone of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant were forcibly evicted, and a week later, settlements located within the 30 km zone of compulsory resettlement...
Third similarity- after some time, the evacuees were allowed to return to their homes and take the most valuable and necessary things. Returns for property in the Chernobyl zone continued for several months and were of a disorderly nature. The evicted Japanese were allowed to return to the abandoned houses also a few months after the evacuation - they were allowed to take one package of things and documents of other valuables from the abandoned house.
Fourth- manifestations of looting. Unfortunately, facts of looting (robbery) took place both in and in the province of Fukushima. The scale of robberies in the Japanese exclusion zone is significantly lower than in the Chernobyl zone - mainly pharmacies, hospitals, and ATMs were robbed. Break-ins of abandoned dwellings were often discovered.
Fifth– presence of – people who refused to evacuate from the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. These people are in the exclusion zone secretly, when asked by journalists about the reasons for refusing to evacuate, Japanese self-settlers (and these are overwhelmingly elderly people) say phrases that we have been hearing in the Chernobyl exclusion zone for 25 years - “ Why should we go away? We are old, and radiation has already caused us no harm. If we must die, let us die in our home «.
Features of the exclusion zone in Japan
Unfortunately, a detailed report on the organization of the evacuation of the population from the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant could not be found. Nevertheless, some conclusions can be drawn using materials from Japanese media.
The catastrophic consequences of the tsunami, which resulted in the death of thousands of people and the subsequent large-scale radioactive contamination, made search and rescue and evacuation activities extremely difficult. It is obvious that carrying out the eviction of tens of thousands of civilians in conditions of total destruction of infrastructure, shortage of energy, means of protection, etc. - a difficult task. This moment in the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant will be one of the most unpleasant, resonant in the descriptions of Japanese documentarians when the time comes to comprehend the disaster. What is it about?
The authorities failed to promptly search for and bury the people killed in the disaster. The photo below was taken in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant by photographer Donald Weber.
Human corpse in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant
This is a photograph of a human corpse found by a photojournalist during a visit to the exclusion zone of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant - 1. Author's website - http://donaldweber.com/2011/fukushima-exclusion-zone/
A sad fate also awaited the livestock abandoned by their owners during the evacuation. As far as we can judge now, the authorities have banned the export of livestock and other farm animals, but at the same time, public services had no right to seize animals. Abandoned animals died of starvation, often in confinement. The authorities also did not have the right to kill or bury animals. As a result, a significant part of the livestock died from starvation or as a result of lack of human care.
Dramatic images of the consequences of such ill-conceived management of the exclusion zone can be seen in many photographs taken by journalists while visiting the affected area of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Dead livestock in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant
Abandoned farm in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear power plant
Abandoned ostrich farm in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant
Consequences of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant
Radiation situation in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant
A network of observations of the radiation situation has been organized in the FAPP exclusion zone. Gamma background levels are measured at 50 stationary points. Radionuclide contamination of air, soil and water is also assessed. The location of measurement points is shown on the map. The main radioactive pollutants in the FAPP exclusion zone are radioiodine (I131), cesium-134 (Cs134) and cesium-137 (Cs137).
map - radiation monitoring network in the FAPP exclusion zone
The radiation background values in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima NPP - 1 are as follows:
- territory within a 3-km radius from the nuclear power plant - from 1900 to 7500 microR/hour;
- territory within a radius of 3-5 km of the exclusion zone from nuclear power plants - from 4300 to 3400 microR\hour;
- territory within a radius of 5 – 10 km zone from the nuclear power plant – from 50 to 1900 microR\hour;
- territory within a radius of 10 - 20 km zone from the nuclear power plant - from 50 to 2900 microR\hour;
It is difficult to talk about the average background values in these areas of the Japanese exclusion zone, since there is a large patchiness of radiation contamination and the maximum levels are areas that fell under the northwestern trace of radioactive fallout, which completely crosses the exclusion zone and goes beyond its limits.
Current data on the radiation situation in the Fukushima nuclear power plant exclusion zone are published weekly on the website Monitoring information of environmental radioactivity level http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/en/ – Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
Data on the radiation situation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant itself can be found on the website of the operating organization Tokyo Electric Power Company's http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/
Specific activity sea water near nuclear power plant reactors is also constantly monitored (several times a day and from different depths). According to the report for September 18, 2011 (sampling was carried out on September 16) - the radioactivity of the water is below that detected for iodine-131 - less than 4 Bq / l, cesium-134 - less than 6 Bq / l, cesium-137 - less than 9 Bq / l.
They do not conduct excursions, and in general they prohibit anyone from appearing again within a radius of 20 km from the site of the tragedy. But, what should you do if you really want to look at what is now an abandoned nuclear power plant and city? In this case, there is a legal way to get to the accident site, which is what the author of this post took advantage of, who at his own peril and risk exposed himself to the danger of radioactive irradiation.
Japan is still recovering from the disaster of 2011, when a powerful tsunami battered the country’s shores, but the worst thing is that it caused an explosion in nuclear power plant Fukushima-1, located right on the coast (why?). The disaster also destroyed communications, many of which have not been restored. Thus, the railway line for intercity trains was partially destroyed.
Life goes on and people need to move around the country. And outside the 30-kilometer radiation danger zone, this life is very active. A year ago, the transport company launched a bus route allowing passengers to transit directly through the Fukushima exclusion zone before continuing on a regular train.
The bus runs only once a day, in the morning from Tatsuta Station in Naraha City to Haranomachi Station in Minamisoma City. Both of them are located on the boundaries of the Zone. I bought a ticket and sat down at the front of the bus, right behind the driver. Besides me, there were five passengers. Not the most popular flight.
The bus exits onto highway number six. This is the main road, but it is blocked. Local cars and special vehicles can pass through, but they simply wouldn’t let me in with Yokohama license plates. They wave a green flag at the bus - go ahead.
I have two dosimeters with me, given to me by Leo Kaganov and his friend Yura Ilyin. The one on the right is more accurate; it filters out some “extra” frequencies. But most importantly, he can write a GPS track of the route with the radiation level at each specific point. These are Ilyin’s inventions, and such a device exists in a single copy in the world. A little later we will decipher the track and create a radiation map of Fukushima. The values, as in the picture, are the very beginning of the Zone.
The road is empty. Sometimes there are cars on it, but rarely. The bus goes without stops. I will say more: the driver has instructions not to stop under any circumstances. No matter what happens. An obstacle on the road needs to be rammed.
Everything is already abandoned. We pass empty towns and villages.
Someone left their car in the parking lot. And he will never take it away again. It has accumulated so much radiation that the driver will die a terrible death.
Sometimes the readings from the two devices almost coincided, sometimes they differed greatly. They measure in microsieverts per hour. This is already serious radiation.
There hasn't been much destruction in four years of desolation. But some houses are already in very poor condition.
Someone even managed to board up the windows against vandals.
But everything is surprisingly intact. No broken windows, no burned cars.
And remember Chernobyl, where literally everything was taken away, even what was strongly “fouling”.
Don't want a free car or free gas? It probably remained in the tanks.
The authorities, of course, took measures to stop them from wandering around. The area is large and they cannot control every corner.
Therefore, the streets “in depth” are blocked with such fences. They are easy enough to climb over.
You can go for a walk through empty supermarkets
It’s realistic to steal all these cars and sell them to ignorant suckers.
A car dealership with old American limousines, that's a lot of money!
And construction equipment for every taste. Radioactive, so what.
But there is one small nuance. If you are caught, you will be fined 100 million yen (that's 55 million rubles). And you will be caught. There are cameras and patrols everywhere.
Although, they probably tried. There are piles of abandoned equipment lying around. And their TVs are all old, not a single plasma!
They threw everything away indiscriminately. The evacuation was carried out immediately.
There are boards with radiation levels on the road. Increasing.
The dosimeter is screaming non-stop. I was distracted by photographing and did not take the highest reading - 6.5 microsieverts. This is a lethal dose if you spend any time here.
Guarded checkpoints are appearing more and more often.
We pass the turn to the Fukushima-1 station itself. The background is off the charts. I’m already physically feeling uneasy, and I’m waiting for us to pass this section.
The distance to the destroyed nuclear power plant is no more than 500 meters in a straight line. It is hidden behind the forest, only one pipe is visible.
And then he lets go. The background is decreasing, life is returning. Black bags stretch along the horizon; radioactive things are collected in them (as I understand it). The Japanese have plans to deactivate the territory as much as possible in order to at least partially restore life here.
And they succeed. They have already been able to disinfect several villages and one city. A month ago, residents were allowed to return, but so far they are in no hurry.
I admire the resilience of these people. They lost everything and suffered a major environmental and man-made disaster on their land. Thousands died, hundreds of thousands were injured. The entire nation was knocked off its feet: even those who lived far from the tsunami were in deep shock and mourning. And the Japanese stood up, dusted themselves off, and began to systematically and calmly restore life to normal.
A little over an hour later our bus stopped near railway station Haranomachi is located in the center of Minamisoma City.
5 years ago, on March 11, 2011, the strongest earthquake in the last century and a half occurred in northeastern Japan. According to experts, the force of the tremors came close to the maximum possible on the Richter scale - 8.9 points out of 9. Following the tremors, a 14-meter tsunami wave swept along the east coast of Japan, hitting the largest island of the Japanese archipelago of Honshu and destroying several settlements in the northeast of the island. As a result of the earthquake in Japan, many industrial facilities caught fire: oil refineries, factories and enterprises. According to emergency services, this tragedy counts 15,892 dead, 6,152 injured and 2,576 missing. But the terrible tragedy did not end there. As a result of the huge tsunami, four of the six power units of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant were flooded. The wave disabled the reactor cooling system. The accident was the largest in the last 25 years since the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The accident was then assigned level 6 on the INES scale. The same level was assigned to the accident at Mayak in 1957. However, in terms of the degree of consequences and pollution later than this radiation accident was assigned the maximum level of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The complete elimination of the accident, including the dismantling of the reactors, will take about 40 years, and the economic damage, according to a rough estimate, amounted to about 309 billion USD.
At the end of 2015, the number of evacuees was 120,000. Residents left their homes in a hurry, taking only documents and the most necessary things. No one could have imagined then that they would never return here. After 5 years, the territory of the exclusion zone was taken over by nature, and the surrounding landscapes began to look more like post-apocalyptic ones.
There is a similar post-apocalyptic place on the territory of Ukraine: the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Organized excursions go there; in the spring, on memorial days, thousands of displaced people come there to honor the memory of their relatives. And the so-called Stalkers, in search of unforgettable experiences, illegally enter the Zone through roundabout routes. In Japan, this is much stricter. Unlike Chernobyl, tourists are not allowed here, and journalists are not very welcome. Because of this, this place is even more attractive and shrouded in mystery. All things, cars and products remained in their places, as if frozen in time: full store shelves, tables covered with food in restaurants and canteens, household utensils - as if their owner was about to return and continue the suddenly interrupted meal.
Polish photographer Arkadiusz Podniesinski managed to visit the exclusion zone near the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant.
- “When I first visited Chernobyl 7 years ago, I was sure that a catastrophe of this magnitude would not happen again. Nuclear energy has such advanced safety technologies that a reactor failure simply cannot happen - that’s what scientists and the government said.”
4 years after the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, I visited the site, as well as the cities of Namie and Futaba, to talk with those local residents who had returned and photograph the consequences of the disaster.
"I came to Fukushima as a photographer and filmmaker. I wanted to see with my own eyes the impact of the disaster on the world. Destruction caused by the tragedy at the nuclear power plant and its consequences. I also wanted to capture the testimonies of those people who returned here years after the disaster. By doing this, I wanted to find out the truth, and not this or that point of view from the means mass media or government propaganda that attempts to downplay the damage, consequences and possible risks to the environment and people in the future. Even now, despite the fact that so many years have passed, people do not return home. Many live in a temporary shelter, but there are also those who returned home without following the evacuation order in the same way as you did during Chernobyl."
Warehouse for storing bagged contaminated soil during decontamination.
It is reported that the process of decontaminating the soil will take 30 years, but many believe that this will never happen.
The government allocated $320 million to freeze the soil around the station.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant today has six reactors, with the first reactor being the most damaged by the tsunami wave and the oldest. It poses the greatest radiation hazard. The second and third reactors are partially damaged. At the time of the accident, these power units were stopped by the emergency protection system, but the generators powering the cooling system were damaged due to the wave. Which led to such consequences. Now they are emitting radiation. Isolation structures were built around the reactor. But they are destroyed due to the difficult climate and rainwater.
One of the main unresolved problems after the accident remains the ongoing leaks at the station. radioactive water. The largest leak at a nuclear power plant after the accident occurred in August 2013. Then a leak of 300 tons of radioactive water with a strontium concentration of about 80 million becquerels per liter was recorded from the tank where radioactive water is stored after cooling the reactors. The Nuclear Energy Control Committee assigned the leak a third level of danger on the INES scale. Another problem is the accumulation of radioactive water in the underground rooms and tunnels of the station as a result of cooling the reactors. Its quantity is constantly increasing due to groundwater, which seeps into the underground premises from the hills.
Abandoned cars
Among the thick grass I found a car. And behind him more and more. It turned out to be a whole traffic jam of cars that had been abandoned by people, most likely nuclear plant workers, during the evacuation. They all make a lot of noise.
Vines grow across the road next to an abandoned car near the town of Naraha, inside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone near nuclear power plant Fukushima, in northeastern Japan. (David Guttenfelder/AP Photo)
But thousands of unwanted, abandoned cars are just the tip of the iceberg when... we're talking about about Fukushima.
Many items are now highly radioactive and contain toxic substances. chemical substances, which poison the land, groundwater and ocean for miles.
Abandoned supermarkets
Some time after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a new one emerged - a biological threat. Because people left their homes in a hurry, hoping to return soon; a lot of food was left in the premises, and pets remained in the apartments. First, entire detachments of military personnel, and then looters, emptied apartments, shops and warehouses. With Fukushima, everything happened in much the same way: the shelves of supermarkets and smaller stores were full. But if there are almost no untouched places left in the Chernobyl zone, and children’s toys in an abandoned kindergarten Pripyat is wearing gas masks to give the picture more atmosphere, while in the exclusion zone near Fukushima all this has so far remained untouched and pristine.
The inscriptions made by the teacher in the ill-fated 2011 still remain on the school board.
One of the classrooms on the first floor of the school. An attentive reader can replace the trace under the board - showing the level of the tsunami wave. On the board, besides school curriculum, words written after the tragedy are also reflected former residents, schoolchildren and workers, such as: “we will be reborn”, “we can do it, Fukushima!”, “Stupid TEPCO”, “we were softball rivals, but always united in our hearts!”, “We will definitely return !”, “Fukushima is strong”, “We must not give up and move on”, “If only we could return to our life at sea”, “Two years have already passed, but Primary School Ukedo looks the same as it did on March 11, 2011, this is the beginning of a renaissance."
Farm of Masami Yoshizawa, who returned here after the disaster to take care of abandoned animals. Yoshizawa described how, shortly after the accident, his cows began to develop mysterious white spots on their skin. Masami suspects this is due to the cows eating contaminated grass. Despite instructions from the authorities to destroy all livestock that have been infected, he tries to prove otherwise, is in constant contact with the media, and participates in protests in front of the Japanese Diet. Unfortunately, other than financial support and regular blood testing of cows, there is no one willing to fund more extensive research.
On this moment The Masami Yoshizawa farm has 360 head of cattle. The cracks in the ground were caused by an earthquake.
Is it a coincidence, but in the Fukushima affected area, as in the case of Pripyat, there are not only industrial facilities but also many social buildings, parks and playgrounds. Just like in Chernobyl, the surrounding area is decorated with slogans talking about nuclear energy and a bright future. “Nuclear energy is the energy of a bright future” - today this is an ironic reminder of the destructive consequences of its use atomic energy. Towns in the area were closely connected to the nearby power plant.
In Japan, in preparation for Olympic Games in 2020 there is an obsession to revive these lands. However, the experience of a similar accident in Chernobyl suggests the opposite: radioactive isotopes there are still preserved in trees and earth objects. They fall deep into the ground under the influence of rain and are carried by the wind from dilapidated buildings. Nuclear disasters are unique in that they have such a lingering effect. Despite nature's best efforts at remediation and recycling, the radioactive isotopes that were released to the surface as a result of the accident have a half-life of 30 years or more, which means that it will still be a long time before these toxic and radioactive substances cease to have an impact. harmful effects. This area has yet to be explored, as a living reminder of why people need to be more careful with nature and the atom.
In March 2011, as a result of the strongest earthquake and tsunami in Japanese history, a major radiation accident occurred at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant: about half a million people were forced to leave their homes, and thousands of square kilometers of land became uninhabitable. Anton Ptushkin visited Fukushima and told why it is not like Ukrainian Chernobyl and what the phenomenon of the exclusion zone is.
I have been to the Chernobyl zone three times. Two tourist trips It turned out to be not enough to fully penetrate the local atmosphere, and the third time I got there illegally - as part of a stalker group. When you find yourself in a territory isolated from the outside world, where there are only abandoned villages, wild animals and radiation around, you experience a sensation completely unlike anything else. Until a certain time, it seemed to me that this could only be felt in Chernobyl. But this May, I visited Fukushima, a Japanese prefecture that was hit by a radiation accident in 2011.
Chernobyl and Fukushima are unique to a certain extent. These are two small pieces of land from which man was expelled as a result of his own creation. The so-called exclusion zones formed as a result of accidents are a metaphor for the entire technical revolution. Humanity has been predicted more than once to die from its own inventions; the exclusion zone is a micromodel of such a scenario.
Humanity has been predicted more than once to die from its own inventions; the exclusion zone is a micromodel of such a scenario.
As a result of the disasters in Chernobyl and Fukushima, more than half a million people were forced to leave their homes, and thousands of square kilometers of territory were left uninhabitable for many years to come. This, however, did not prevent the Chernobyl zone from becoming an object of pilgrimage for tourists from all over the world: tens of thousands of people visit it every year. Tour operators offer several routes to choose from, including even helicopter excursions. Fukushima in this regard is practically terra incognita. Not only is there no tourism here, it’s difficult to find even basic official information about the routes and cities into which entry is permitted.
In fact, I based my entire trip on the correspondence of two Americans on the Tripadvisor website, one of whom claimed that he had no problems traveling to the town of Tomioka, 10 km from the emergency nuclear power plant. Arriving in Japan, I rented a car and headed to this city. The first thing you notice about Fukushima is that it is not as abandoned as it might seem at first glance. There are people here, private cars and even regular buses. The latter was a complete surprise to me; I was used to the fact that the zone is a completely closed area.
In order to enter the 30-kilometer zone near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, for example, written permission is required. Naturally, I did not have any written permission in Japan. I didn’t even know how far I would be able to drive, and I kept expecting that I was about to run into a police checkpoint who would turn the car around. And only after several tens of kilometers it became clear that the Japanese had not blocked the highway for traffic, and it ran right through the zone, and quite close to the emergency nuclear power plant - the station’s pipes were visible right from the road. I am still surprised by this decision, which was certainly forced. In some sections of the route, even in a closed car, the background exceeded 400 µR/h (with the norm being up to 30).
The Japanese divided their zone into three parts by color: from red, the most polluted, where people were forcibly resettled, to green, which is relatively clean. It is prohibited to be in the red zone - the police are monitoring this. In yellow and green, stay is allowed only during daylight hours. Territories included in the green zone are potential candidates for settlement in the near future.
The Japanese divided their zone into three parts by color: from red, the most polluted, where people were forcibly resettled, to green, which is relatively clean. Territories included in the green zone are potential candidates for settlement in the near future.
Land in Japan is a very expensive resource, so the map of the Japanese exclusion zone is not static: its boundaries are revised every year. The boundaries of the Chernobyl zone have not changed since 1986, although the background in most of it is normal. For comparison: about a third of all lands that were once part of the Belarusian exclusion zone (the territory of the Gomel region) were transferred to economic use 5 years ago.
Radiation
During the five days of our trip to Chernobyl, I only had to worry twice while looking at the dosimeter. The first time was when we decided to take a shortcut through the forest and made our way for 30 minutes through dense thickets with a background of 2500 microR/h. The second was when I went down to the notorious basement of medical unit No. 126 in Pripyat, in one of the rooms of which the belongings of the firefighters who extinguished the block on April 26, 1986 are still kept. But these are two special cases, the rest of the time the background was the same as in Kyiv - 10-15 microR/h. The main reason for this is time. Strontium and cesium, the most common radioactive isotopes contaminated in the area, have a half-life of 30 years. This means that the activity of these elements has already halved since the accident.
Fukushima is still only at the beginning of this path. In the cities of the red, dirtiest zone, there are many “fresh” spots, and they are all quite radioactive. The highest background that I was able to measure there was 4200 μR/h. This is how the soil was saturated two kilometers from the nuclear power plant. It is dangerous to leave the road in such places, but I think if I had walked a couple of meters further, the background would have been several times higher.
Radiation can be fought. Since the Chernobyl accident, humanity has not come up with a better way to combat contamination of the area than to remove the top layer of soil and bury it. This is exactly what they did with the notorious “Red Forest” - a section of coniferous forest not far from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which took the first blow of the cloud from the destroyed reactor. Due to the most powerful doses of radiation, the trees turned red and died almost immediately. Now there are only a few dry trunks in this place: in 1986 the forest was cut down and the soil was taken to a burial ground.
In Japan, the top contaminated layer of soil is also removed, but not buried, but collected in special bags and stored. In the Fukushima zone there are entire fields of such bags with radioactive soil - tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands. 5 years have passed since the Japanese accident, but it still has not been localized. It will be possible to talk about installing any sarcophagi over the blocks no earlier than 2020 - until the radiation fields near the nuclear power plant do not allow people to work there. Even the robots that the Japanese send to clear the rubble “die” more often than the heroes of “Game of Thrones” - their electronic “stuffing” simply cannot stand it.
Even the robots that the Japanese send to clear the rubble “die” more often than the heroes of “Game of Thrones” - their electronic “stuffing” simply cannot stand it.
To cool the emergency reactors, 300 tons of water are pumped into the cores every day. Leaks of such highly radioactive water into the ocean occur regularly, and radioactive particles from cracks in buildings get into groundwater. To prevent this process, the Japanese are installing soil freezing systems, which will be cooled by pipes with liquid nitrogen.
For five years now, the situation with Fukushima has resembled a serious wound that is being treated with poultices. The problem is that there was one emergency reactor in Chernobyl, and there are three in Fukushima. And we should not forget that the time of kamikazes has long passed: no one wants to die, even as a hero. When a Japanese worker reaches a certain dose, he is removed from the radiation danger zone. With this frequency of rotation, more than 130,000 people have already passed through Fukushima, and the problems with new personnel are becoming increasingly felt. It is becoming clear that Japan is in no hurry to solve the problems of Fukushima by overexposing its personnel, and is simply waiting for the background to decrease over time.
For the USSR, liquidation of the accident was primarily a matter of prestige, therefore, to combat the peaceful atom that had gotten out of control, the country spared no resources - neither material nor human.
After the Chernobyl accident, the sarcophagus over the fourth power unit was built in six months. This is a fantastically fast solution difficult task. This goal could only be achieved at the cost of the health and lives of thousands of people. For example, to clear the roof of the fourth reactor, so-called “biorobots” were brought in - conscript soldiers who scattered pieces of graphite and fuel assemblies with shovels. For the USSR, liquidation of the accident was primarily a matter of prestige, so the country spared no resources, neither material nor human, to combat the peaceful atom that had gotten out of control. There is still a saying among the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident: “Only in a country like the USSR could the Chernobyl tragedy happen. And only a country like the USSR could cope with it.”
Time stop
Radiation has one unusual property: it stops time. It is enough to visit Pripyat once to feel it. The city is frozen in the socialist landscape of the 80s: rusty Soviet signs, rickety Soda Water machines and a miraculously surviving telephone booth at one of the intersections. In Fukushima cities, this temporal contrast is practically not felt, because Chernobyl turned 30 this year, and Fukushima is only 5. By this logic, in a few decades, Japanese villages in the notorious prefecture can become an authentic museum of their era. Because here almost everything remains in its place. The safety of things sometimes simply amazes the imagination.
If looting took place here, it was only in isolated cases and was immediately stopped by the authorities, who established cosmic fines for the removal of any things and objects from the contaminated territory. The cultural side of the Japanese, of course, also played a role.
Pripyat was less fortunate in the matter of preserving historical sites. After the accident, it ended up in the hands of looters, who piece by piece stole everything that was of any material value: things, equipment. Even cast iron batteries were cut out and removed from the zone. There was practically nothing left in the Pripyat apartments except large-sized furniture - everything had been removed long ago.
The process of theft continues to this day. According to the stories of stalkers, groups engaged in illegal mining and export of metal are still working in the zone. Even contaminated equipment that was directly involved in the liquidation of the accident and posed a threat to human health was stolen. The burial grounds of such equipment produce a pitiful sight: mangled cars with torn out engines, rusty fuselages of helicopters with stolen electronic equipment. The fate of this metal, as well as the people who exported it, is unknown to anyone.
Police
In Chernobyl, in addition to the radiation itself main danger there was police. Falling into the hands of the police guarding the zone meant ending your trip ahead of schedule and getting acquainted with the Chernobyl regional department, and in the worst case, also saying goodbye to some of the things from your backpack (dosimeters and other equipment were taken away from fellow stalkers during the arrest). A dangerous episode happened to us only once: at night in the dark we almost stumbled upon a checkpoint, but a few meters away we heard voices and managed to bypass it.
In Fukushima, I still had to meet the police. They stopped me a few kilometers from the nuclear power plant and asked who I was and what I was doing here. After a short story about how I am from Ukraine and writing an article about the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones, the police twirled my dosimeter in their hands with interest (I had a bright yellow Ukrainian Terra-P), copied my passport and license, and took a photograph of me just in case, they let me go. Everything is very respectful and tactful, in the spirit of the Japanese.
Nature
The common feature of Fukushima and Chernobyl is the absolute, triumphant victory of nature. The central street of Pripyat now resembles an Amazonian jungle more than a once bustling city artery. Greenery is everywhere, even the strong Soviet asphalt is broken through by tree roots. If the plants do not start to be cut down, then in 20-30 years the city will be completely absorbed by the forest. Pripyat is a living demonstration of the duel between man and nature, which man inexorably loses.
The tragedy at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the subsequent resettlement of residents had a rather positive impact on the state of the fauna in the zone. Now it is a nature reserve, which is home to a significant part of the animals from the Red Book of Ukraine - from black storks and lynxes to Przewalski's horses. Animals feel like masters of this territory. Many areas in Pripyat, for example, are pitted with wild boars, and our guide showed a photograph in which a huge elk calmly stands in front of the entrance to the entrance of a nine-story Pripyat building.
Another feature of Fukushima is that many directions and entrances are blocked. You see the road, you see the street and the buildings behind it, but you can’t get there. It's very similar to a 3D shooter, in which part of the map's geography is not drawn, you just bump into an invisible wall and are unable to go further.
One of the highlights of my time in Fukushima was my first hour in the zone. Trying to see as much as possible, I moved exclusively by running and got to the coastal area that was most affected by the tsunami in 2011. There are still destroyed houses here, and heavy equipment is strengthening the coastline with concrete blocks. As I stopped to catch my breath, the city's public address system suddenly turned on. Dozens of speakers located on different sides, creating a strange echo, began to speak Japanese in unison. I don’t know what that voice was saying, but I just froze in place.
There was not a soul around, only the wind and an alarming echo with an incomprehensible message. Then it seemed to me that for a second I felt what the residents of the Japanese prefecture felt in March 2011, when the same speakers were broadcasting about the approaching tsunami.
It is difficult to convey all the impressions from the exclusion zone. Most of them are on an emotional level, so the best way A visit to, for example, the Chernobyl zone will help me understand. The excursion is relatively inexpensive (about $30) and absolutely safe. I would not recommend delaying it, since in the near future there may be nothing left to see in Chernobyl. Almost all buildings in Pripyat are in disrepair, some of them are being destroyed literally before our eyes. Time has not been kind to other artifacts of that era. Tourists also add their contribution to this process.
And if Chernobyl seems to forever remain a deserted monument to one of the largest man-made disasters in world history, then the Fukushima cities - Tomioka, Futaba and others - look as if they are still waiting for the return of residents who left their homes 5 years ago. And it is quite possible that this will happen.
