Talk:Kyshtym disaster

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A fact from Kyshtym disaster appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 May 2009, and was viewed approximately 7,400 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Kyshtym disaster was a serious nuclear accident in 1957, which resulted in permanent evacuation of about 10,000 people?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/May.

Wikipedia

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on September 29, 2011, September 29, 2013, September 29, 2015, and September 29, 2017.

More information, please

I wish more were known in English about the human magnitude of this Cold War disaster, whose magnitude fully rivals Chernobyl. How many died within 1 year? How many eventual cancers? Birth defects? How many square kilometers are still no-go zones?132.181.160.42 (talk) 02:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest "Nuclear Disaster in the Urals" (ISBN 0-207-95896-3) by Zhores Medvedev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhores_Medvedev]). It is available in English. Please note that the book was published in 1979 and the details of the disaster were not released by the Soviet Authorities until 1990. OldBoar (talk) 16:41, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is an accessible secondary source (http://www1.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/ural.htm). OldBoar (talk) 08:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Could anybody please import some of the plenty images from the article's the German version?--87.148.233.212 (talk) 15:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some of those images can be found in the Mayak article. --62.142.167.134 (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

POV

The claim that the CIA repressed information about Kyshtym is reported as fact in the final paragraph under 'Aftermath'. In fact it is second hand speculation; Gyorgy paraphrases Ralph Nader's speculation about the motives of the CIA. Allenc28 (talk) 06:57, 30 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Intelligence from inside of the USSR was tightly controlled as at LEAST SCI. As such, the CIA would keep the information classified, rather than potentially lose sources and means of that intelligence. Not because of some paranoid speculation about a fledgling industry.Wzrd1 (talk) 03:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strength of the explosion

With all due respect to the extent of the disaster, 70-80 tons of LIQUID ammonium perchlorate + ammonium nitrate don't even remotely deliver the explosive force of about 70–100 tons of TNT. Please do change the figure. Even if it was 70 tons of dry ammonium nitrate, the force of 70 tons of TNT just isn't provided. In order to "lift" and throw aside a lid weighing 160 tons and spray the content of the tanks up to the sky, 10 tons of ANFO would suffice.
Regarding source [3] ("Archives of MAYAK") I could find the description of the disaster in indications only; no estimation regarding the explosive force (nor any clear description of the explosion itself) is given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.2.135.162 (talk) 08:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1957USSR2.html estimates 5-10 tons of TNT. --Dominique Meeùs (talk) 10:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two potentially useful refs

From the study I cited for the evacuee section. Can't find either but they're the source of two different radiation dose figures for the various villages in the area, unfortunately my ref grouped villages and averaged across those groups without giving the originals.

G.N. Romanov, L.A. Buldakov and V.L. Shvedov, Irradiation of a population and medical consequences of the accident [in Russian]. Priroda (Nature), 5 (1990) 63-67. and A.M. Skryabin, Hygienic assessment of contamination effects with radioactive waste on a vast territory. Final Report on Research Work/FIB-4. Invent., 1549 (1985) 105. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.152.194.33 (talk) 10:08, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fatalities

The article states "Even though the Soviet government suppressed information about the figures, it is estimated that the direct exposure to radiation caused at least 200 cases of death from cancer.("The Southern Urals radiation studies: A reappraisal of the current status". Journal of Radiation and Environmental Biophysics. 41. 2002.)"

However, the supporting cite (here in full for free) does not support the number of cancers, and makes it clear that the figures are no longer suppressed. I will try to put together something better.--Yannick (talk) 15:50, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of current radiological contamination

Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 are listed as being the primary contaminants. These isotopes both have relatively short half-lives of around 30 years, so nearly 3/4 of their contamination will have decayed by now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.195.84 (talk) 06:47, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I added current level of radiation in Ozyorsk based on a reliable source. You can add more based on Journal of Radiological Protection^[1] 134.191.220.73 (talk) 10:43, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "Journal of Radiological Protection, December 2015, pp. 789-818".

Southern Urals Study

The reference to this study is incomplete and the link is broken. For some reason the editor won't let me insert a citation using the wizard, so somebody please revise it with the following information: Kellerer, A. M., (2002), The Southern Urals radiation studies, Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, 41-4, pp307-316. 10.1007/s00411-002-0168-1 216.96.233.118 (talk) 14:11, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Kolbasz (talk) 13:09, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"second" versus "third" most serious accident

It measured as a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale, making it the second most serious nuclear accident ever recorded, behind the Chernobyl disaster and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster (both Level 7 on the INES).

As 76.107.252.227 revert every edits to change this single word, I'm discussing it here. So, why "second" instead of "third"?
"The second most serious thing after 412 others (of the same level)" do not make sense in my grammar so why would it make some with only two items? Is there any supported reason to enforce "second"?
--
Tharvik (talk) 18:47, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The International Nuclear Event Scale does not rank by amount of radioactivity released, but by the impact on population. Mayak is still the second highest release of radiation, but being a restricted classified government area intentionally built in rural Siberia, there was less local impact than the much larger mass evacuation of people near Fukushima. Thus it is second (by radioactivity release) but third on INES because Fukushima was in a much more populated area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.103.119.30 (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In Europe?

The article is categorised as an environmental disaster in Europe but, given that the location of it appears to be east of the Ural would that not make it Asia rather then Europe? Calistemon (talk) 13:07, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Conflicting reports on date of confirmation

While reading many contemporary news reports about Chernobyl, many mention a "theorized" disaster near Kyshtym that "has never been confirmed by Soviet leaders". Seeing as Chernobyl occurred in 1986, how could it be that Medvedev told the world in 1976? For example, the ABC News Nightline from the evening of April 28th, 1986 specifically reporting on Chernobyl makes direct mention of the "theorized" disaster. Something isn't adding up here -- why would Western news sources claim it had never been verified if there was very good evidence published in a scientific journal 10 years prior? MrAureliusR_Talk! 03:53, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Journal of Radiological Protection, December 2015, pp. 789-818".

[1]