The US National Security Archive has declassified one of the intelligence documents regarding the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
According to a secret message published on the organization’s website dated May 2, 1986 addressed to the US Secretary of State, US intelligence doubted the veracity of official USSR reports on the number of victims of the accident.
“The entire intelligence community believes a fatality figure of two is preposterous,” the document says.
The United States could not believe in such information, based on the extent of the destruction.
“A normal day shift at the Soviet RBMK-1000 reactor is reported to be around 100 people. A night shift would be 25-35 people. This would mean that because unit 3 and 4 are adjacent, as many as 200 people in the daytime, or up to 70 people at night could have been working in the vicinity of reactor when the accident began,” the document says.
US intelligence believes that the immediate evacuation was ordered when the seriousness of the accident became apparent; still a fairly large crew were expected to carry out procedures to solve whatever problem may have caused by the accident.
“The pictures show the fire brigades at the reactor, and this confirms the assumption that additional resources were attracted to respond to the incident,” the report say.
The scales of the destruction led U.S. intelligence to assume that everyone near the reactor was killed.
As The Journalist reported, Ukrstroymontazh will dismantle old Chernobyl NPP sarcophagus.
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