a056  0428  24 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl,0288
URGENT
Experiments Conducted In Turbines Led To Chernobyl Accident
    MOSCOW (AP) - Badly prepared experiments conducted to see if a
turbine generator could provide energy to an atomic power plant in
case of an accident caused the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a Soviet
offical said today.
    Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, responding to
questions at a news conference, said he could not provide full
technical details of the experiments.
    He said specifics would be published in a report ''hundreds of
pages'' long, to be presented to the Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency by September.
    Soviet authorities have said the April 26 accident at the Ukrainian
power plant occurred as workers were taking down the station for
scheduled maintenance work. They said the plant was at a 7 percent
power level at the time.
    ''When you shut the station, the generator is still working,''
Gerasimov said. ''The experiment (was) ... if there is an accident,
could the generator provide energy for the station for 40 to 45
minutes.''
    ''The capabilities of the generators were studied, the generators
that generate kinetic energy,'' he said.
    Gerasimov said the experiment was ''a purely technical experiment,
nothing special about it.'' He denied what he said were suggestions
in the Western media that it had military significance.
    ''The point is not that the experiment was conducted, the point is
that it was conducted without the necessary precautions,'' Gerasimov
said.
    The ruling Politburo said in a report issued Saturday that
Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor exploded as workers conducted improverly
supervised and badly prepared experiments on a turbine generator.
    The report said 28 people were killed and more than 100,000
evacuated after the accident.
    
AP-NY-07-24-86 0727EDT
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a063  0544  24 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl, 1st Ld - Writethru, a056,0556
Eds: NEW thruout with more detail on previous Soviet report on
accident, other background, statement on Shcherbina's role as head of
government commission. No pickup. ADDS byline.
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
    MOSCOW (AP) - Badly prepared experiments conducted to see if a
turbine generator could provide enough electricity to run an atomic
power plant in case of an accident caused the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, a Soviet offical said today.
    Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, responding to
questi
 
 
BUST BUST BUST
 
 
AP-NY-07-24-86 0840EDT
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a070  0701  24 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl, 1st Ld - Writethru, a056,0623
Eds: NEW thruout with more detail on previous Soviet report on
accident, Gerasimov saying in later interview he said 40-45 seconds,
not minutes, other background, statement on Shcherbina's role as head
of government commission. No pickup. ADDS byline.
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
    MOSCOW (AP) - Badly prepared experiments conducted to see if a
turbine generator could provide enough electricity to run an atomic
power plant in case of an accident caused the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, a Soviet offical said today.
    Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, responding to
questions at a news conference, said he could not provide full
technical details of the experiments.
    He said specifics would be published in a report ''hundreds of
pages'' long, to be presented to the Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency by September.
    In a later telephone interview, Gerasimov said the experiment was
intended to test how long the turbine generators that produce
electricity at the Chernobyl plant would keep operating after a
reactor shut down and before a backup power supply took over.
    ''When you shut the station, the generator is still working,''
Gerasimov told the news conference, according to an official English
translation of his comments. ''The experiment (was) ... if there is
an accident, could the generator provide energy for the station for
40 to 45 minutes.
    ''The capabilities of the generators were studied,'' he said.
    However, in the telephone interview, Gerasimov insisted he had said
40 to 45 seconds.
    Gerasimov said the experiment was ''a purely technical experiment,
nothing special about it.'' He denied what he said were suggestions
in the Western media that it had military significance.
    ''The point is not that the experiment was conducted, the point is
that it was conducted without the necessary precautions,'' he said.
    Previous Soviet reports have said the No. 4 reactor at the Ukrainian
nuclear power plant was being shut down for routine maintenance at
the time of the April 26 accident.
    The reactor surged from 6 percent of capacity to 50 percent in 10
seconds, reports have said.
    The cooling system could not handle the overload, and water combined
with graphite and produced hydrogen which exploded, ripping open the
reactor core, setting fire to the building around it, and spewing
radiation into the atmosphere, reports have said.
    The disaster claimed 28 lives, injured at least 203 people who
suffer from radiation sickness and forced the evacuation of more than
100,000 people from the area around the faciility. The plant is some
80 miles north of Kiev.
    The ruling Politburo said in a report issued Saturday that the
reactor exploded as workers conducted improverly supervised and badly
prepared experiments on a turbine generator.
    In a related issue, Gerasimov denied what he said were Western
reports that Deputy Premier Boris Shcherbina, head of the government
commission investigating the accident, had been demoted.
    Speculation about Shcherbina's demotion was prompted by a July 3
report by the official news agency Tass identifying Deputy Premier
Vladimir Gusev as head of the commission.
    Gerasimov said Shcherbina still was head of the commission. He did
not explain the Tass report, but he said Gusev is now in charge at
the disaster site. Gusev will return to Moscow on Sunday and will be
replaced by another official, Gerasimov said.
    At least two other deputy premiers, Ivan Silaev and Lev Voronin,
have spent time at Chernobyl directing cleanup operations, according
to Soviet reports.
    Gerasimov said Shcherbina spent 10 days at the Chernobyl site
immediately after the disaster. A Soviet government official has said
Shcherbina spent ''about a day'' in hospital in May after returning
from Chernobyl and was then discharged.
    
AP-NY-07-24-86 1001EDT
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a219  1233  24 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl-3 Months, Bjt,1137
Three Months After Chernobyl: Ghost Towns and Firings
An AP Extra
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
    MOSCOW (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear accident has created ghost
towns, cost top government officials their jobs and triggered a
review of the ambitious nuclear program that is the cornerstone of
the Kremlin's future energy policy.
    Three months after the reactor exploded in a radioactive fireball
April 26 in the Ukraine, workers are still cleaning up and the
nation's highest authorities are undertaking an unusual public
accounting of an unprecedented disaster.
    On July 19, the ruling Politburo blamed the accident on gross
negligence of plant workers and officials it said ignored safety
procedures and undertook experiments without proper precautions.
    Most of what is known about the accident comes from official Soviet
accounts; few foreigners have been allowed near the plant.
    But a picture of some proportions has emerged of what happened at
1:23 a.m., Saturday, April 26, in Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor near the
town of Pripyat, 80 miles north of Kiev, in the Ukraine.
    ---
    THE ACCIDENT
    The No. 4 reactor had been shut down. Without notification, and in
violation of safety rules and without proper supervision, workers
began experimenting on one of the electricity-producing turbines,
according to the Politburo account.
    The reactor, cooled by water and moderated by graphite, surged from
6 percent of capacity to 50 percent in 10 seconds. The water cooling
system couldn't handle the overload. Water combined with the graphite
and produced hydrogen that exploded. The blast ripped open the
reactor core and set fire to the building around it.
    One official said the first blast was equivalent to a ton of
dynamite and was followed by lesser explosions. Two plant workers
were killed.
    Intense heat turned the graphite into glowing embers that burned for
two weeks.
    Firefighters battled flames for four hours, some dying, to stop fire
from spreading to the adjacent No. 3 reactor building and to a
central core of cables, the lifeline for both reactors.
    Radioactive particles, including iodine-131, cesium and strontium,
formed a cloud that spread across northern and central Europe and
eventually around the world in varying degrees.
    ---
    THE EVACUATION
    The 50,000-plus residents of Pripyat, the closest to the reactor,
weren't evacuated until Sunday afternoon, April 27. About 1,800 buses
were brought from Kiev; officials said later the exodus took just a
few hours, but it took eight more days to evacuate the rest of the
18-mile danger zone; no one has explained why.
    In all, more than 100,000 people were evacuated, along with
thousands of animals. Some went far away to new jobs and new homes.
Children were sent to summer camps. Some reports say a few evacuees
were allowed back to villages near the edge of the danger zone but
that Pripyat is a ghost town with abandoned wash flapping from
clotheslines. Other reports say thousands of people will get new
homes this fall farther away from Chernobyl.
    No one has said when or if the reactor area will be habitable again.
    ---
    THE KREMLIN'S REACTION
    For almost 72 hours, the Kremlin told its own people nothing.
Diplomatic queries in Moscow and Europe met curt denials.
    But the spreading radiation, detected abroad, couldn't be kept
secret. On Monday, April 28, in late evening, the government
acknowledged the accident.
    ---
    THE CLEANUP
    Military pilots dumped sand, lead, boron and dolomite onto the
reactor, choking off the radiation almost completely.
    Miners and soldiers dug and blasted a tunnel to build a concrete and
lead platform beneath the reactor block.
    Workers are now making a concrete shell for the reactor that is
slated to be in place by late autumn - a tomb that will remain
radioactive for hundreds of years.
    Embankments 12 miles long were built to protect the Pripyat River,
which flows by the plant and into the Dnieper, which feeds a
reservoir north of Kiev, and then runs through the city itself.
    A new water supply system was built for Kiev, although officials say
water there is safe. Underground streams are to be diverted from the
plant area to avoid washing radiation into the Pripyat River.
    Chemical sprays and synthetic ground covering are being used to
decontaminate the plant, the soil and the surrounding villages. Some
topsoil is being removed.
    Scientists hope contaminated soil can be planted again, but it is
not clear how.
    ---
    THE HUMAN COST
    The latest official toll is 28 dead and 30 hospitalized. An
additional 173 are listed as having radiation disease. Doctors,
including three U.S. physicians and an Israeli, performed 13 bone
marrow transplants and six fetal liver transplants.
    One of the Americans, Dr. Robert Gale, has said 50,000 to 100,000
people risk contracting radiation-related diseases, but that the
actual number of cases will be much lower. Yet, he and his Soviet
colleagues are discussing ways to monitor 200,000 people for life.
    ---
    THE ECONOMIC IMPACT
    The Politburo said the accident has caused the equivalent of $2.8
billion in damage, shut down factories and farms and contaminated 400
square miles of land.
    Western experts say the reactor itself was worth $1.4 billion. The
cleanup also cost hundreds of millions. Losses in farm produce, work
time and factory production are difficult to assess.
    The Washington-based research group Planecon says Chernobyl will
cost the Soviets $2.7 billion to $4.3 billion.
    Soviet officials say two of the three undamaged reactors will be
working again by October, but there's no word on the third.
    An official said alternate sources have been able to make up only a
fraction of the energy lost by Chernobyl's shutdown.
    Soviet officials say they're still committed to nuclear energy. But
the entire Soviet program is under review.
    The Politburo said safety procedures at nuclear plants, including th
other 11 Chernobyl-type reactors, must be reassessed and workers
retrained.
    The practice of locating plants near towns and cities is under
review and safety improvements are planned for all reactors.
    ---
    POLITICAL FALLOUT
    The Chernobyl disaster was a test for Mikhail S. Gorbachev's
promises to extend accountability into the Kremlin itself and to
carry out investigations and punishment publicly.
    No top party officials have been fired but the Politburo's report
said a state committee chairman, a rank equal to a government
minister, was fired, along with two deputies. A second chairman was
given a strict warning.
    Lower down, the plant manager and local party and industry officials
have been sacked. The Politburo has said those responsible for the
accident will be tried.
    
AP-NY-07-24-86 1532EDT
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