April 29 1986 Politburo Session Notes from the Diary of Vitaly I Vorotnikov The meeting started at 10 30 in the morning We listened to a more comprehensive information report from Dolgikh The situation at the NPS is catastrophic The reactor is practically destroyed There is an active expulsion of graphite from the core The temperature of the nuclear fuel in the reactor is rising The level of radiation is extremely high Over one hundred people received high doses of radiation and have been hospitalized They were taken to Moscow the Third Department of the USSR Ministry of Public Health The radioactive cloud is spreading The first very preliminary graph after the measuring shows areas of radioactive contamination were discovered in the north-western western and southern directions in the distance of 4 to 5 kilometers from the Chernobyl NPS Proposals adopted by the Commission jointly with scientists and specialists 1 To continue dumping sand boron and lead on the reactor 2 Detailed analysis and decontamination of the territory Sanitary cleanup and evacuation of people 3 Monitoring of the air masses The direction of the air movement is changing Dispersal is uneven It is necessary to expand the radius of search and measurements of radioactivity levels of the contamination 4 To establish a standing group for communications with Chernobyl 5 Delimitation of a zone with a 10-kilometer radius Controlled entry 6 The Shcherbina Commission should be replaced shortly because they received high doses of radiation Use the shift method for the work of the Commission Then we heard information reports from Israel Burenkov Altunin Ginko Akhromeyev Aleksandrov Vlasov Ministry of Interior Essence of Aleksandrov's explanations The biggest accident The NPS is of RBMK type Most important now is not to allow contact between the nuclear mass and water The melting could move downward under the reactor and the cement plate is a pool with water If contact occurs then - detonating-gas and a catastrophe Serious criticisms of civil defense and the Ministry of Public Health Decontamination is organized poorly primitively There are shortages of equipment and materiel One cannot approach the zone of strong contamination with radionuclides No protection Testing and medical treatment of people are inadequately organized Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya for the National Security Archive This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu