Search of the Russian scientific literature for the descriptions of the medical consequences of the Kyshtym accident

Technical Report · Tue Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:6399997

Parker, F L

This report describes a study concerning the nuclear waste accident at Kyshtym in the Soviet Urals in 1958. Soviet medical literature, interviews with potentially knowledgeable people, and the Samizdat Writing (underground documents smuggled to the West and/or surreptitiously circulated in the Soviet Union), were studied to attempt to determine what injuries or deaths, if any, occurred as a result of the event. All of the cases of radiation exposure discussed in the various literature searched seemed to be typical occupational or therapy overdoses. No allusion to the massive numbers reportedly irradiated in the accident appears in the literature searched. Evidently, these data are classified and not discussed in the open literature. This study also resulted in a modification of our understanding of the accident's cause; i.e., perhaps there was no single cause. At present, the best supposition is that there were many releases of wastes to the river system over time, plus an explosion in the fuel reprocessing plant, and that would help to explain the widespread distribution of nuclides. The lack of short-half-lived nuclides relative to long-lived ones can also be explained by the release over an extended period and the time between the accident and the beginning of the studies.

• Research Organization: Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (USA). Dept. of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 6399997
• Report Number(s): ONWI-424; ON: DE83009224
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

054000* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Health & Safety
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
ACCIDENTS
ASIA
DOCUMENT TYPES
EASTERN EUROPE
EUROPE
EXPLOSIONS
FUEL REPROCESSING PLANTS
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
HUMAN POPULATIONS
INDUSTRY
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
POPULATIONS
RADIATION ACCIDENTS
RADIATION HAZARDS
REVIEWS
USSR