Disaster at Pripyat

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 26 April, 2018. 


Today, 32 years ago, a disaster befell the population of Pripyat. But the genesis of the disaster began the day before, on 25 April 1986. The nuclear power plant just outside of town was preparing a test. See, in normal operation over 6% of a reactor’s power is derived from decay heat of accumulated fission product, not the nuclear reactor itself. This heat remains even if the reactor is stopped via emergency shutdown. As such, it needs its cooling pumps to operate after an emergency shutdown even if the power grid was down.

They had three backup diesel generators, but they take about 60 seconds to start up – leaving a one minute gap that was considered an unacceptable safety risk. However, it was theorized that the rotation of the steam turbine as it wound down could be used to generate electricity to cover that gap. But on 25 April, as the day-shift workers were preparing for the test of this theory, another power station went offline, and the test was postponed, as it would require the power station to reduce its output from peak of 3200 MW to only 700 MW for the test. 

As a result, clearance for a reduction in power was only given by 23h04, by which time day shift had already left, and the evening shift was preparing to leave. The test would fall to the night shift, who had very little time to prepare and carry out the test. By 00h05 on 26 April 1986, reactor 4 had its power reduced to 700 MW, but due to a build-up of Xenon-135, a by-product of the nuclear reaction that is usually ‘burned off’ at high operating levels, began to build up and further decreased the power. Power dropped to 500 MW, and Leonid Toptunov mistakenly inserted the reactor control rods too far. This put the reactor in a near-shutdown state. 

The control room decided to increase the power level by disabling automatic systems and manually removing control rods to increase power – but it would not increase beyond 200MW due to Xenon-135 poisoning. This also resulted in unstable temperatures and coolant flow. Extra water pumps were activated at 01h05, but the increased coolant flow rate meant that the inlet coolant temperature rose, as the water no longer had enough time to release heat to the turbines and cooling towers.

At this stage, only 18 of the 211 control rods were still fully inserted into the core, when the test began at 01h23. However, as the turbine coasted down, the power it should have supplied to the water pumps began to decrease, lowering the flow rate. This resulted in steam bubbles forming in the coolant, which is less effective than water at absorbing neutrons and keeping the nuclear reaction controlled. This started a positive feedback loop in power generation. 

Greater power resulted in more steam, resulting in greater power, etc. With power levels rapidly increasing, a manual emergency shutdown was initiated. This resulted in all of the control rods manually removed earlier being reinserted into the core. But the core rods had been designed with a graphite neutron moderator tip to boost reactor output when the rods had been fully retracted. By inserting the rods, water (neutron absorbing) was first displaced with Graphite (neutron moderating) resulting in another power spike. Within three seconds power output had spiked to 530 MW. The core overheated, causing the fuel rods to fracture, blocking the control rods at only one-third inserted.

Now nuclear fuel was mixed in with the coolant, and the temperature rose rapidly. Power levels spiked to 33 000 MW, ten times what the reactor was rated for, and steam pressure built up. This resulted in a steam explosion that destroyed the external cooling structure around the reactor, and destroyed the reactor casing. With coolant lines now broken, the remaining coolant flashed to steam and escaped from the core. Two seconds later, the now overheating core exploded, and Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Power Plant was no more. 

Reactor containment was breached in the explosion, and hot lumps of the graphite moderator was ejected. Now exposed to air, it ignited and started graphite fires. Radiation levels in the reactor was now about 6 Roentgens per second, or more than 20 000 per hour. A lethal dose is around 500 Roentgens over 5 hours. Reactor Chief Akomov assumed the reactor was still intact, and sent members of his crew to try and pump water into the reactor. Akimov and his crew died of radiation exposure within three weeks.

The Chernobyl firefighter brigade also gave their lives to try and stop the fire. Grigorii Khmel reported, “Misha filled a cistern and we aimed the water at the top. Then those boys who died went up to the roof – Vashchik, Kolya and others, and Volodya Pravik.... They went up the ladder ... and I never saw them again.” Anatoli Zakharov said, “If we'd followed regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. But it was a moral obligation – our duty. We were like kamikaze.” The fire was finally extinguished by dropping over 5000 tons of sand, lead, clay, and neutron-absorbing boron onto the burning reactor along with liquid nitrogen using helicopters.

The city of Pripyat was not immediately evacuated, however, until dozens of people suddenly fell ill a few hours later, with severe headaches and metallic tastes in their mouths, coupled with coughing and vomiting. By the evening of the 26th, two people in the town had died and 52 were hospitalized, and an evacuation was organized. At 14h00 on 27 April 1986, Pripyat was evacuated. 

 
The rest of the world only learned about it when a radiation alarm was set off by airborne radiation at a Swedish power plant on 28 April 1986, over 1 100 km from Pripyat. In total, over 160 000 square kilometres of land was affected, and over 1 million people exposed to radiation over Westerns Europe. Today, Pripyat stands as a city slowly being retaken by nature, in the middle of the 2 600 square kilometre Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, with only limited human occupation allowed for short periods of time – a landmark created by mankind’s greatest nuclear disaster.

Yuri’s Night

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 12 April, 2018.

Tonight, 12 April, is Yuri’s Night. It’s a night celebrated across the globe to celebrate humanity’s first achievement in spaceflight – the first human mission to orbit the earth. It celebrates Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, and his Vostok 1 mission on 12 April 1961, when humanity took its first tentative steps towards the stars. 

Yuri Gagarin was born on 9 March 1934, on a collective farm in the village of Klushino in Russia. His father, Alexey Ivanovich Gagarin was a carpenter and bricklayer, and his mother, Anna Timofeyevna Gagarina was a milkmaid. Yuri had an elder sister and brother, and one younger brother, and the family, like so many millions during that time, suffered during the Nazi occupation in World War II. The village was occupied during November 1941, and a Nazi officer took over their house. They were allowed to build a mud hut of 9 square meters next to their house to live in, and his elder two siblings were sent to Poland for slave labour until the end of the war. 

After the war, the family moved to Gzhatsk (now named Gagarin) where Yuri got his education. Initially apprenticing as a foundryman, he graduated from vocational training and was selected for further training at the Saratov Industrial Technical School, studying tractors. It was there that he volunteered for training as a Soviet air cadet during weekends. After graduation in 1955, he was drafted into the Soviet Army, where his flight experience was recognized, and he was sent to the First Chkalov Air Force Pilot’s School in Orenburg.

With his first solo flight in a MiG-15 in 1957, he graduated and was assigned to the Luostari airbase close to the Norwegian border. The terrible weather there made flying risky, and by 6 November 1959 he was promoted to Senior Lieutenant. This meant that in 1960, Yuri was selected with 19 other pilots to become part of the Soviet space program. He was then further selected to be part of the so-called ‘Sochi Six’, from which the first cosmonauts were to be selected, and subjected to experiments to test mental and physical endurance. When the 20 candidates were asked to vote for which candidate they’d want to go first, 17 voted for Gagarin.

The final choice was between Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov. The Head of Cosmonaut Training, Nikolai Kamanin, finally made his choice on 9 April, 1961. Yuri was examined by a team of doctors before the flight, with one remarking, “Gagarin looked more pale than usual. He was unsociable and quiet, which was not like him at all. He would answer by nodding or a short 'yes' to all questions. Sometimes he would start humming some tunes. This was a different Gagarin. We geared him up, and hugged. And I said, 'Yuri, everything will be fine.' And he nodded back.”

At 5h30 on the Morning of April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin and his backup Titov were woken up, had breakfast and were then fitted in their suits. Yuri entered the Vostok 1 spacecraft at 07h10, two hours before launch. Since the entire mission would be controlled by either automatic systems or ground control (because they were unsure of how weightlessness might affect humans) the pilot’s manuals controls were locked by code. An envelope with the code was placed onboard in case Gagarin needed it, but prior to getting in, Kamanin told him the code anyway.

While waiting for the launch, Yuri requested some music. Chief Designer of the Vostok capsule, Sergei Korolov had not slept the night before due to anxiety, and was having chest pains and on his way to a nervous breakdown. He was given a pill to calm him down, but Yuri was calm – his heartrate recorded at only 64 beats per minute before launch. 

At 09h07, the Vostok 1 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 1. Korolev radioed, "We wish you a good flight. Everything is all right." Gagarin replied, "Let's go! (Poyekhali!)." His informal “Polyekhali!” became a historical phrase, used to indicate the beginning of the Space Age. Gagarin continued to monitor the flight over the next ten minutes, reporting all is well and that he’s continuing the flight until ten minutes after lift-off, when the rocket stage shut down, and separated from the Vostok 1. It had reached orbit, and Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the earth. 

From orbit, Yuri radioed, "The craft is operating normally. I can see Earth in the view port of the Vzor. Everything is proceeding as planned." Of weightlessness, he noted, “The feeling of weightlessness was somewhat unfamiliar compared with Earth conditions. Here, you feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel as if you are suspended.”

5 minutes later, Vostok 1 had crossed Soviet Russia and was beginning to diagonally cross the Pacific Ocean. By 11h00, it had crossed the Strait of Magellan at the tip of South America. At 11h25, over the West Coast of Africa, near Angola, the Vostok 1’s retroboosters fired, and its descent began. By 11h35, Vostok 1 was already over Egypt, and Gagarin began to feel the 8 gravities of deceleration, but he maintained consciousness. At 11h55, with the Vostok 1 still seven kilometres from the ground, Yuri was ejected, and his parachute opened. The Vostok 1’s parachute opened 2.5km from the ground, and the two schoolgirls who witnessed it said, "It was a huge ball, about two or three meters high. It fell, then it bounced and then it fell again. There was a huge hole where it hit the first time."

Yuri landed about ten minutes later, at 12h05, about 26km south-west of Engels in the Saratov region of Russia. A farmer and her daughter observed this strange sight – a figure in a bright orange suit with a large white helmet landing near them. He later recalled, "When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!"

Yuri was not so fortunate 7 years later, when on a training flight he and his co-pilot died in a MiG-15 crash near Kirzhach. They bodies were cremated and buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square. But Yuri will always be remembered on this day, on this night, for his achievement. Since 2011, the UN has designated 12 April as International Day of Human Space Flight. 

So tonight, look up at the sky, and remember Yuri’s words as he entered the Vostok 1, “Dear friends, you who are close to me, and you whom I do not know, fellow Russians, and people of all countries and all continents: in a few minutes a powerful space vehicle will carry me into the distant realm of space. What can I tell you in these last minutes before the launch? My whole life appears to me as one beautiful moment. All that I previously lived through and did, was lived through and done for the sake of this moment.”

Accounting Our Nation

Originally published in the Informanté newspaper on Thursday, 5 April, 2018.

Last week, we took the data presented to us by Statistician-General Alex Shimuafeni and the Namibia Statistics Agency and examined our neighbours and our trade partners. Now the time has come to hold ourselves accountable. During the last week, the NSA has also released the Preliminary National Accounts, and the picture does not look rosy. With the data from trade and balance of payments collated, and the data from private and government sources added up, the results were clear. Namibia had experienced an economic contraction of 0.8% during 2017. 

I’m sure this news surprised no-one. It merely confirmed what we already knew having informally surveyed the economy over the past year – but the National Accounts serve a different purpose. It allows us, though the data, to see exactly where we suffered most, and gives us insight into possible avenues of turning our economy around. So, to start off, let’s examine inflation first.

Inflation peaked during 2016 at 6.7%, and remained elevated during most of 2017 until it started tapering down during the latter part of the year. As a result, inflation for 2017 only averaged 6.1%, with the main contributors to lower inflation being food and alcohol (5.6%), tobacco (4.6%), clothing and footwear (-0.4%), furnishing and other household expenses (4.6%), health costs (5.7%) and recreation and culture (4.1%).

Next, we’ll take a look at the different economic sectors before taking an overall view. The Agriculture and Forestry sector is a highlight for 2017, as it managed strong growth of 12.7% compared to 1.8% in 2016. This is as a result of good rainfall, which saw an increase in crop farming (and in cereal production specifically) and resulted in the crop farming subsector posting 11.4% growth. Livestock farming also didn’t disappoint, with growth of 13.7%, given better export prices for livestock during the year.  The Fishing sector, however, did not do as well, recording a growth of only 1.3%, down from growth of 9.1% during 2016. This is attributed to the 10.9% decline in demersal landing, in stark contrast to its 27.2% growth in 2016. 

Mining and Quarrying, fortunately, also showed strong growth of 12.8% during 2017, compared with its 5.8% contraction in 2016. In particular, the diamond subsector grew by 12%, due to an increase in carats produced, while the metal ore subsector grew by 9.9% off the back of zinc production that spiked to 25.3%. The uranium subsector is still struggling, off the back of weak demand and low market prices, but 4 the subsector didn’t contract. Rather, it posted strong growth of 23.4% due to increased production as a result of new mines that came online during the year. The other subsectors also registered growth of 4.3% in 2017 compared to a contraction of 19.8% in 2016, due to granite and marble production that increased by 113.4% and 36% respectively.

The Manufacturing sector, however, only recorded growth of 1.4% in 2017 compared to 5.2% in 2016. With the meat processing, food processing and textiles subsectors declining by 14.4%, 4.6% and 3.2%, and diamond processing recording slower growth of 14.6% compared to 85% as in 2016, it was up to the grain mill, leather, and non-ferrous metal subsectors to enable positive growth, each growing by 16.3%, 10.3% and 4.8% respectively.  The Electricity and Water sector also felt the effects of muted economic growth, with electricity growing only by 4.2% and water down by 7.4%. The sector’s overall growth of 1.8% is due to an increase in intermediate electricity consumption, resulting in large power imports. 

The Construction sector continues its slide downwards, having recorded a contraction of 25.6% in 2017, compared to its similar decline of 26.3% in 2016. This is mostly as a result of government construction reducing by 29%, and the completion of mining construction projects, which also reduced by 64.4%. There does appear to be at least some signs of stabilization, with the value of buildings completed increasing by 35.5% in 2017 from a 25.5% reduction in 2016.
Wholesale and retail trade continues to feel the effect of negative economic headwinds, contracting by 7.1% in 2017, compared to growth of 2.7% in 2016. It’s in particular the vehicle and furniture subsectors that bear the heaviest burden here, with contractions of 24.5% and 3% respectively. Hotels and Restaurants also found itself with reversing fortunes, as it recorded a decline of 2% in 2017 compared with 2016’s growth of 3.2%. 

The Transport and Communication sector at least remained in positive territory, with growth of 0.8% compared to 2016’s 7% growth. The Financial Intermediation sector continued its constant growth, again growing with 2.8%, with the banking subsector contributing 2% growth and the insurance subsector contributing 4.1%. Real Estate and Business services showed growth of 2.4% compared to 2.7% in 2016, and finally, the Public Administration, Defence, Education and Health sectors still shows the effect of government consolidation, with Public Administration and Defence showing growth of 0.3%, but Education contracting by 1.2% and Health by 1.3%


As Lewis Carrol so aptly put it, “The time has come," the Walrus said, “To talk of many things.” We can no longer deny the truth that is the precarious situation we as Namibians find ourselves in. We can see where the holes in our economy are, and we know we have to patch them. But unlike the oysters in Carrol’s poem, we should not sit around and talk of many things, for then we shall be devoured as surely as those oysters. The time of talking is clearly over for the Namibian Economy. The time of doing should start now.