22 coaches online • Server time: 04:29
Mayak is the name of a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant between the towns of Kasli and Kyshtym (also transliterated Kishtym or Kishtim) 150 km northwest of Chelyabinsk in Russia. The plant is in the Ozersk central administrative territorial unit, formerly known as Chelyabinsk-40, later as Chelyabinsk-65, and part of the Chelyabinsk Oblast.
Working conditions at Mayak resulted in severe health hazards and many accidents [2].The most notable accident occurred on 29 September 1957, when the failure of the cooling system for a tank storing tens of thousands of tons of dissolved nuclear waste resulted in a non-nuclear explosion having a force estimated at about 75 tons of TNT (310 gigajoules), which released some 20 MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radiation. See list of military nuclear accidents and [3]. Subsequently, at least 200 people died of radiation sickness, 10,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and 470,000 people were exposed to radiation. People "grew hysterical with fear with the incidence of unknown 'mysterious' diseases breaking out. Victims were seen with skin 'sloughing off' their faces, hands and other exposed parts of their bodies." (Pollock 1978: 9) "Hundreds of square miles were left barren and unusable for decades and maybe centuries. Hundreds of people died, thousands were injured and surrounding areas were evacuated." (Zhores Medvedev, The Australian, 9.12.1976). This nuclear accident, the Soviet Union's worst other than Chernobyl, is categorised as a level 6 "serious accident" on the 7 point International Nuclear Events Scale.