In Chernobyl's Sarcophagus

The first reporter on the scene of the Chernobyl accident in late April 1986 was Vladimir Gubaryev, science editor of Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper in the Soviet Union. An engineer by training, Gubaryev had covered science for the paper for 10 years while also writing plays and a score of books. His experience at Chernobyl prompted him to write the play Sarcophagus, first published in the September 1986 issue of the Soviet literary journal Znamya (“The Banner”). The play is set in the medical experimental section of the Institute of Radiation Safety in Moscow. Bessmertny, who was accidentally exposed to 600 Roentgens of radiation when, drunk, he passed out in a nudear physics laboratory, has been in the facility for 487 days when the story opens. The lab receives word of the accident at Reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl and begins to receive the victims, including a physieist from the Institute of Applied Atomic Energy Research who had been temporarily assigned to the reactor facility. Other victims include a fireman and his general injured at the scene. Later, an official from the State Prosecutor’s Office arrives to investigate the accident. The play ran this summer in London (for a review of the play see THE SCIENTIST, August 10, 1987, p. 24), is scheduled for a second run at London’s Mermaid Theatre beginning in October, and has been published in an English translation by Michael Glenny (Vintage/Random House, 1987). The following excerpts involving the physicist are taken from the book. [Bessmertny and the fireman are playing checkers. The physicist emerges from his cubicle.]PHYSICIST:Would you be very kind and tell me where I could make a phone call?BESSMERTNY: At the post office, in a phone box or at the railway station.PHYSICIST:Forgive me, but I know that. I mean, where can I phone here?BESSMERTNY:I forgive you. Your move, maestro. And watch out you don’t fall into a trap.PHYSICIST:Excuse me for distracting you, but I absolutely must make a phone call. I’ve been doing some calculations....FIREMAN:You can’t call from here. Don’t you realize where you are?PHYSICIST:Thank you. Of course, I realize where we are, but don’t you find such total isolation intolerable?BESSMERTNY:No, I don’t. I advise you to resign, maestro.PHYSICIST:(Glancing at the board) Too soon to resign yet. Do you object if I give him some advice?BESSMERTNY:Yes, I do! If you like, you can put yourself down for a game of ‘sudden death.’PHYSICISTS:Where should I do that?BESSMERTNY:Join the queue, join the queue.... Better still, tell us about these calculations you’ve been doing.PHYSICIST: Does it interest you?BESSMERTNY:We’re interested in absolutely everything! After all, the sum total of all mankind’s achievements is concentrated within each individual.PHYSICIST:The whole thing is much simpler than it might seem. The reactor was stopped when it was in an unstable mode, which produced local overheating in one particular sector. Because the emergency system had been switched off, the rise in temperature led to the first, small explosion, which damaged the cooling system. At this point a most peculiar process began to take place: the pressure increased, the water was turned into steam...FIREMAN:I saw it blowing out. But something like it has happened before.PHYSICIST:You are absolutely right. But when it happened before, it was brought under control by the fail-safe system. This time, though, it wasn’t, and consequently the process accelerated exponentially. Simultaneously with the rapid rise in temperature, practically all the cooling water broke down into oxygen and hydrogen, until finally...BESSMERTNY: The reactor blew itself apart.PHYSICIST:‘Blew itself apart’ is absolutely correct—or, to be more precise, it collapsed both towards the machine room and, simultaneously, in the opposite direction. The nature of the reactor’s self-destruction is also explicable—or will be when I’ve been able to build a mathematical model of it by running it through a computer. That’s why I must make some phone calls.FIREMAN:We’ve all been asked to write reports. By the way, what do you call them? We call them ‘reports.’BESSMERTNY:They call it ‘scientific research.’ But which stupid bastard—pardon my language—switched off the emergency system?PHYSICIST:That I couldn’t tell you. It was not foreseen in any of the standing instructions.BESSMERTNY:And do the standing instructions foresee driving through Moscow in the rush hour when your brakes aren’t working?PHYSICIST:I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow you.FIREMAN:What he means is—it’s suicide.BESSMERTNY:No, I didn’t mean that at all. I mean it’s murder. Not suicide—murder! You’ve won, maestro. (To the PHYSICIST) Your turn for a game.PHYSICIST:Thank you, but if you don’t mind, I’ll go hack to my cubicle and do a bit more work on my calculations. If I can’t get through and explain them by telephone, I shall have to write them out a bit more frilly.BESSMERTNY:Fair enough. I made the offer, after all. I don’t mind admitting that I wanted to get my own back by beating you.GENERAL:It’s all your doing, you physicists. Atomic energy—the future of civilization .... Atomic bombs, reactors, power stations ....You dreamed it all up—now look what’s happening!PHYSICIST:Why is it our fault? The reactor is a perfect device. It’s a miracle! But you simply can’t treat it like....GENERAL:Like what9PHYSICIST:Forgive me, but you can’t treat a reactor... carelessly. It can’t stand just any sort of handling. It will take a lot, but not everything. Like a human being.GENERAL:What exactly do you mean?PHYSICIST:I may be mistaken, of course, but, judging by my calculations, the emer- gency fail-safe system was switched off. That means there was someone who gave the order to switch it off.GENERAL: Who?PHYSICIST:Unfortunately, I don’t know. INVESTIGATOR: Thank you. We’ll sort this business out and find out who’s to blame.CONTROL-ROOM OPERATOR: I hope to God you do. Then there will have been some point in not running away. But if you don’t, we’ll all snuff it for sod-all.(Exit.)PHYSICIST:Excuse me, but I must second the comrade’s opinion. The chief thing about this tragedy is the lessons we must learn from it. We haven’t the right not to draw the proper conclusions. It would simply be irrational if we didn’t. The experimental data available to use are enormous— in all areas.(The GENERAL comes out of his cubicle and listens to the conversation.)INVESTIGATOR: Experimental data?PHYSICIST:I’m sorry, perhaps I didn’t express myself clearly enough. You see, there has been no such experiment as this in the whole history of science—the explosion of a reactor and ita consequences. It may even be the only instance of ita kind—or rather the first. We must, however, see to it that it’s the last. And for that we must study it from every aspect—theoretical, technical, psychological. Absolutely comprehensive study. Not formal and superficial, but profound and from all angles.INVESTIGATOR: What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? After all, that was something similar.PHYSICIST: I’m sorry, but they cannot be compared with ChernobyL In Japan, everything was destroyed. Instantly. From the shock wave and from radiation pressure. And the Americans haven’t yet published all their data on radio-biology. They immediately declared their work in that area to be classified information. Here, after Chernobyl, the situation is different Here they’re saying, the atomic devil has jumped out at us. Well, believe it or not, they’re right. Before, we physicists seemed to know all about that devil, but I’m sorry—we didn’t. So we must study him. Believe me, the value of this experience is priceless. I know that sounds cruel and callous, but it is priceless.Text copyright © 1986 by Vladimir Gubaryev. Translation Copyright © 1987 by Michael Glenny. Used by permission of Vintage/Random House.

In Chernobyl's Sarcophagus

The first reporter on the scene of the Chernobyl accident in late April 1986 was Vladimir Gubaryev. He later wrote a play about the incident, excerpted here.

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