PHASE 2 : EVACUATION OF PRIPYAT

DATE : 27 April 1986 (Sunday)

TIME PERIOD : 14.00 PM - 17.30PM

MANAGED BY : Soviet military and civil defence units

AUTHORISE BY : Boris Scherbina and Valery Legasov

LOCATION : Pripyat, Post Soviet Union Ukraine

After discovering the actual threat of meltdown as it was releasing trenmendous amounts of radiation every hour. Legasov immediately convinced the chairman of his government commission, Boris Shcherbina, to evacuate people from Pripyat (which is only 3 km away from the reactor) immediately.

But by that time before the order was given two people had already died and 52 were hospitalized. This delegation soon had ample evidence that the reactor was destroyed and extremely high levels of radiation had caused a number of cases of radiation exposure. Initially it was decided to evacuate the population for three days; but later this was made permanent.

Buses were brought in and 50,000 people were taken out, which saved many lives from risking potential radiation acute syndrome. After that, Legasov and the officials established a 30km Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which is said to be unsafe for human habitation till the day or the next 20,000 years. Residents were given two hours to gather their belongings.

The evacuation of Pripyat’s 43,000 residents took 3.5 hours, using 1,200 buses from Kiev. Residents remember that everyone was in a hurry, but nobody was panicking. The residents of Pripyat were asked to carry with them only what was required for two or three days, some food, a change of underwear, and their identity papers. Dosimeters are however, confiscated. To expedite the evacuation, residents were told to bring only what was necessary, and that they would remain evacuated for approximately three days. As a result, most personal belongings were left behind, andit stills remain there today.

By 15:00, 53,000 people were evacuated to various villages of the Kiev region. The next day, talks began for evacuating people from the 10-kilometer zone. Ten days after the accident, the evacuation area was expanded to 30 kilometers.  The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone has remained ever since, although its shape has changed and its size has been expanded. Legasov even said to be unsafe for human habitation till the day or the next 20,000 years.

The surveying and detection of isolated fallout hotspots outside this zone over the following year eventually resulted in 135,000 long-term evacuees in total agreeing to be moved. The years between 1986 and 2000 saw the near tripling in the total number of permanently resettled persons from the most severely contaminated areas to approximately 350,000.