I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t heard of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. The recent Sky drama reanimated people’s memories of those days. Few are aware there almost was a Czechoslovak Chernobyl in Bohunice.
The power station
Czechoslovakia’s first nuclear power plant is in Bohunice, about an hour north of Bratislava, which is now the capital of Slovakia. It was a symbol of faith in Soviet technology and the sort of progress that communism provided1.
It would be unfair to label Soviet technology as all wrong, especially given what they did with the church in Most. Blind trust was – and still is – dangerous.
The state approved plans for construction in 1958 and the plant was operational from 1972 till 19772. The power company commissioned it on 25 December 19723. This was a Soviet A-1 type heavy water reactor2 4. It had a single reactor with 150 MW of capacity4, based on 3 x 50 MW turbines2.
So what was the disaster that few know about?
The event
On 05 January 19763, workers at the power plant were replacing the fuel rods in Reactor #11. All of a sudden, one of the four-and-a-half ton rods shot into the air1. It hit a crane and smashed into pieces1. Carbon dioxide gas filled the room to cool it down. The explosion had forced open a shaft, letting in fresh air and neutering the cooling effect1.
As a result, poisonous radioactivity leaked into the countryside4.
Milan Antolik, a technician who was there recalls, “The noise was incredible. It was so loud – a ship’s siren was nothing compared to this. The whole building started shaking and there was just this incredible cacophony of sound.“1
If the shaft wasn’t closed in 30 minutes, it would have been impossible to cool the dangerous reactor down1. Without cooling, the zirconium fuel rods would melt.
This would have been far, far worse than the Chernobyl disaster.
The radiation levels were so high, their devices couldn’t record it1. The level was higher than any device could measure.
Antolik and a colleague, Viliam Pačes, put on their radiation suits and got to work clearing the smashed fuel rod so the shaft could be closed1. They worked as fast as they could, but 2 other men still died from carbon dioxide suffocation3 trying to wrestle control back from the out of control reactor1.
Reaction
The Communist regime hushed the whole incident up1.
The police opened an investigation to look for saboteurs1. The authorities were so convinced about Soviet quality, they felt there must have been a saboteur because it couldn’t have been a fault.
In 1977, a second accident – a fuel meltdown – occurred2 4. On 22 February 1977, the authorities decided to shut the dangerous A-1 power plant down2. The Soviet V-1 and V-2 plants on the same site were not shut down.
In 1987 – 11 years later – Czechoslovakia awarded Antolik and Pačes with a Soviet-era award for services to construction1. As then-prime minister Štrougal gave them the award he was sweating, shaking and couldn’t speak1. Milan Antolík later chuckled with Právo newspaper, “I think he was worried I was still radioactive.”1
On 10 October 1990, readings in the nearby Dudvah riverbed showed an average of 200 Becquerel/kg plutonium-2394.
For comparison, safe levels are 10 Becquerel/kg5.
The Dudvah feeds the Danube river.
In 1991, the public started receiving information about these shocking incidents4. At the time, spent fuel was still inside the reactor core and could not be removed4.
Readings of radioactivity in the Slovakian countryside in 1991 showed the following4:
| Readings (Becquerel/litre trittium) | Safe levels | |
| Ground water | 24 000 | 7 000 |
| Water near the storage tanks | 11 000 000 | 7 000 |
In 2007, details of the incident became public1. Antolík and Pačes were given state honours for bravery by the then Slovak president1. (There’s no mention of whether he too was shaking and sweating.)
In the early 21st century, Westinghouse won a contract to dismantle the V-1s and upgrade the V-2s to extend their lifespan to 20456. On 01 October 2018, the Bohunice skyline changed when the 120-metre high V-1 cooling towers were demolished for good7.
- Europe’s narrow escape from “Czechoslovak Chernobyl”; Rob Cameron; Radio Prague International; 2008-07-01[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- The project of the A-1 NPP decommissioning; EnergyWeb.CZ; (Retrieved 2020-06-15) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF REACTOR ACCIDENT IN A-1 NUCLEAR POWER PLANT JASLOVSKE BOHUNICE; Jozef Kuruc, Ľubomír Mátel; Comenius University; 2007[↩][↩][↩]
- Czechoslovakia: 1977 meltdown; Gabriel Gulis; Nuclear Monitor; 1991-01-18[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Food Safety after Nuclear Accidents: – a Nordic model for national response; Nordic Council of Ministers; 1992[↩]
- Westinghouse signs Bohunice V1 dismantling contract; World Nuclear News; 2017-09-28[↩]
- Skyline of Bohunice nuclear power plant has changed; Slovak Spectator; 2018-10-02[↩]