When we think of giant nuclear disasters, we have a short list that jumps to mind immediately: Chernobyl. Fukushima. Three Mile Island. A reason why so few of these come to mind is because nuclear accidents are exceedingly rare.
So let’s talk about the nuclear on-purpose that was Lake Karachay.
Today’s Moment of Science… The biggest nuclear disaster you’ve never heard of.
In the shadow of WWII, the Soviet Union got a bad case of “igottahaveone” when they saw America’s star spangled nuclear weapons. So they did the responsible thing, meticulously researched everything, and all went according to plan safely.
But this is my column so that’s obviously not what happened.
The longtime head of the NKVD, noted serial rapist and murderer Lavrentiy Beria, was put in charge of the quest for an atomic bomb. Under his project management, they did some spying, opened up a bunch of secret cities, and threw wild amounts of human suffering at the project.
Technically, it worked. They did produce some pretty powerful nukes, but at what cost?
In the Cold War, the USSR’s nuclear cities popped up in secret, literally off the maps. The people chosen to come work there were even removed from the census. They ‘were disappeared’ into the cold Soviet air. In most cases, no contact was allowed with the outside world.
This could come with great reward; working for the government granted a significantly higher standard of living. But it was coupled with a punishing leash. They knew that you knew you were disposable.
It was in City-40, now called Ozyorsk, that the Mayak Production Association was built to research and develop nuclear weapons. Handling nuclear materials can be done perfectly safely. And it’s true that even under the best of circumstances, accidents can happen.
These weren’t the best of circumstances. These were assholes.
Beria held sway over operations and this WWII holdover wanted a bomb ASAP. He didn’t care who he had to hurt to get it. Prisoners from the gulags were used to build the facilities and in handling nuclear materials, often with their bare hands.
But what to do with all this nuclear waste?
Well, for seven years they dumped untreated radioactive waste into the Techa River, which ran through about 40 villages and was used as a drinking water source. Eventually they were like “maybe no more direct radiation poisoning” (…except for that one time in 2001, fucking yikes).
Then they found this lake.
In 1951, they started dumping nuclear waste into Lake Karachay, and all was fine for a while. I mean really, why can’t you just dump a bunch of radioactive materials into a lake far away from people and maybe have it work out? Sure, you could die from radiation exposure within an hour of sitting on the shore, but first you’d have to purposefully head to a radioactive lake, and whose fault would that be? Yours for not noticing all the seventeen-eyed foxes along the way, obviously.
Then there was a long drought in the 1960s that put an end to bygone days of carefree nuclear waste dumping. In 1967 a super dry winter followed by a wicked hot summer put the ‘lake’ part of Lake Karachay to an end. The nuclear bullshit didn’t evaporate with the water though. There was ten feet of radioactive sludge where there had been a lake. The top of the lakebed dried out and wind carried the nuclear dust to nearby villages. It’s unclear how many people were affected, but estimates put the number into the tens of thousands.
Lake Karachay was not just an intentionally created nuclear boner. It’s often called the most polluted place on Earth. It’s hard to compare it directly to a nuclear explosion or meltdown, but in terms of the amount of people affected and the amount of radioactive material dumped? It’s easily one of the biggest nuclear disasters in history. Most people have never heard of it, in part due to efforts to cover it up for years.
It took until 2016 to entirely handle the dusty nuclear lakebed (which is my new band name). It’s been given a proper burial under layers of specially designed concrete bricks, hopefully never to fly about the Russian wilderness again. The area will need regular monitoring for decades to come, both in terms of keeping the former lake stable and checking up on the continued health problems the residents are suffering at the hands of a war they never signed up for.
Oh, and did I mention this was only one of the major nuclear disasters they covered up from Mayak?
This has been your daily Moment of Science, suggesting to pack a geiger counter for your next vacation to a remote village in Russia.
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