The first nuclear disaster in the USSR: the exclusion zone, which was silent for more than 30 years

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The whole world knows about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant today, but in the history of the Soviet Union there was another catastrophe that entailed nuclear explosion … Information about this incident was not disclosed for more than thirty years, people continued to live in the infected zone in the Chelyabinsk region. The fates of the families left to live in the exclusion zone are tragedies about which they prefer to remain silent in official reports …

The Kyshtym disaster took place on September 29, 1957: an explosion occurred at the Mayak plant, which specialized in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. The reason was the breakdown of the cooling system of the containers with radioactive waste. As soon as the temperature reached a critical point, a cloud of radioactive dust rose into the sky.

Measures to eliminate the consequences of the accident were not taken immediately. It is significant that the production cycle at the plant was not stopped, military personnel were involved in liquidation, and proper precautions were not taken. The situation with informing local residents was worse: they were not even explained what had happened, and a couple of days later the young people were even taken to the field for seasonal work.

A week later, it was decided to evacuate people from the contaminated zone. Then they took out about 10-12 thousand people, but the potential danger of radioactive contamination was for hundreds of thousands of people. The villages from which people were taken out were completely destroyed to prevent the spread of radiation. However, a village remained in the region, whose residents, for some unknown reason, were not taken away from the contaminated zone. This village is called Tatar Karabolka. Once it was a large settlement for four thousand people, today there are just over four hundred left here, and even then every third is seriously ill.

The main diagnosis in Karabolka is cancer. Oncology is detected in adults, young people, and even children. There are eight cemeteries in total, people are dying catastrophically quickly, but they do not receive any help from the state now, just as they did not receive it during those long three decades, while the tragedy was silent.

The silence of the tragedy was due to a number of reasons: the accident occurred in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40, so the information could not be advertised. In addition, the Mayak plant worked for the nuclear industry, which also had to be kept secret. The evacuees signed a paper, according to which they promised to remain silent about what happened for 25 years.

Residents of Tatar Karabolka are still trying to achieve recognition of their special status, but so far this has not been successful. For many years, they heated their houses with wood, and only years later did they learn that burning trees was in no way possible due to the fact that they accumulate pollution. Another problem is water. The examination recognized that the local water is not suitable for consumption, but they could not provide a regular supply of water, so people have no choice but to use water from wells.

The most tragic thing in this story is that, according to the documents, the inhabitants of Tatar Karabolka were evacuated after the accident. The paper was signed, but people remained to live, fighting death every day, suffering from severe pain … Only twenty years ago, Tatar Karabolka was again put on maps, from which its image disappeared in the late 1950s.

The first nuclear accident in the history of the USSR occurred in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40. There were many such secret cities throughout the country: they served as military bases, test sites and even nuclear fortresses. This was Soviet ghost town Gudym.