Lyubov' Kovalevskaya was in Pripyat the night of the accident. When she woke
up late the next morning, her mother had reported strange sounds coming from the
power station during the night. In an interview later published in June 1987,
Kovalevskaya told of what she saw when she went outside that Saturday:
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The morning
after the explosion, there was no hint of a disaster. Children went to school
and played outside. Gardeners worked on their plots outdoors and even weddings
took place that Saturday night. Soviet officials appeared to hide the accident
from the locals when they said, "...aren't you used to that? It was a steam
discharge from the power plant."
| "All the roads were covered in water and some white liquid. Everything
was white, foamy, all the curbs...I walked further and saw a policeman
here, another there, I had never seen so many policemen in the town. They
weren't doing anything, just sitting in various places, at the post
office, the Palace of Culture. As if there was martial law. It was quite a
shock. But people were walking about normally, there were children
everywhere. It was very hot. People were going to the beach, to their
country cottages, many people were already there, or sitting by the stream
next to the cooling reservoir. That's an artificial water reservoir next
to the nuclear power station...Anya, my daughter, had gone to school. I
went home and said, 'Mama, I don't know what has happened, but don't let
Natasha (my niece) out of the house, and when Anya returns from school,
take her straight into the house'. But I didn't tell her to close the
window... I went back to the central square...The reactor was quite visible, one could see that it was burning and that its wall was broken. There were flames above the hole. That chimney between the third and fourth blocks was burning hot, it looked like a burning column...We knew nothing all day. Nobody said anything. Well, they said there was a fire. But about radiation, that radioactivity was escaping, there was not a word. Anya came back from school and said, 'Mama, we had physical exercise outside for almost a whole hour.' Insanity." |
Buses arrived in Pripyat midnight, the night after the explosion (Saturday night). They waited for the command to evacuate the city, spending the entire night in a state of alert. At noon the next day, radiation levels had dropped and the evacuation still had not taken place. There was hope for improvement and perhaps no evacuation would be necessary. However, just two hours later, radiation levels had risen which was later described as its maximum. Finally, after the residents of Pripyat and Yanov were needlessly exposed the radiation for 36 hours, the order to evacuate was in place. In only 3 hours, 1100 buses from nearby Kiev took the locals away. The evacuees were told to pack enough clothing and other items for a three day evacuation, but they did not return back to their homes until much later.
A 30 kilometer safety zone was established around the nuclear power station. Everyone within this zone was to be evacuated. These people were bused to areas only about 6 km away from the outer edge of the safety zone. However, such rural districts did not have the capacity for an extra 50,000 evacuees.
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