Akimov, Alexander Fedorovich

Alexander Akimov was born on May 6, 1953 in Novosibirsk. In 1976 he graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute with a degree in automation of heat and power processes. Since September 1979 he worked at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. He worked as a senior turbine control engineer, as well as a shift supervisor for a turbine workshop. July 10, 1984 was appointed to the post of shift supervisor of block No. 4 ^[1] .

Chernobyl accident

Trials and Explosion

On April 26, 1986 at 1 hour 23 minutes 40 seconds Akimov ordered Toptunov to press the AZ-5 button (maximum emergency protection signal), as a result of which all absorber rods were introduced into the core . This action was the last attempt to prevent an accident, the last action of personnel before the explosion and the last of many reasons that caused the explosion ^[2] . So, at each rod the absorber is 6 m from its end and until the absorber reaches the active zone, the rods not only do not inhibit the reaction, but intensify it. Hundreds of rods went down and there was an instant jump in power and vaporization. The rods stopped after only 2-3 m. As a result, the configuration of the channels inside which the rods moved changed and the reactor was most favored for the development of a chain reaction . Thus, the acceleration of an instant neutron reactor began ^[2] . After a few seconds, beats were heard and the operator saw that the absorbent rods had stopped before reaching the lower limit switches. Then he de-energized the servo couplings so that the rods fell into the core under the action of their own gravity ^[3] .

At 1 hour 23 minutes 46 seconds the first explosion was heard, after 2-3 seconds another one. Over the fourth block, according to eyewitnesses, burning pieces and sparks took off, some of which fell on the roof of the machine room and caused a fire ^[3] . As a result of the explosion in the reactor and the ejection of red-hot fragments of its active zone, more than thirty fire centers arose. A particularly dangerous situation developed in the engine room, from where the senior engineer of the turbine Brazhnik ran out and reported a fire. Akimov and Dyatlov looked into the engine room and saw that the seventh turbine was littered with debris, black ashes flakes falling down, and a ceiling panel hung over the abyss of the engine room. After that, Akimov called the fire department ^[3] .

Post accident and death

By 4 o'clock Akimov and Toptunov had already several times ran up to the reactor to see how the water supply from the second emergency feed pump works. Akimov and Toptunov were already brown-brown from a nuclear tan, they vomited. Despite the fact that Vladimir Babichev, the shift supervisor, was sent to replace Akimov, Akimov and Toptunov did not leave ^{[4] [5]} .

Mistakenly thinking that the reactor is intact and water does not get into it, but floods cable routes and high-voltage switchgears, creating a threat to de-energize the other three operating power units, Akimov thought that valves were closed somewhere on the pipeline line. Together with Toptunov, they entered the room of the nutrient assembly at the twenty-fourth mark of the reactor compartment, which was dilapidated by the explosion, and the floor was flooded with water and nuclear fuel. The radioactive background here reached 5,000 x-rays per hour. Akimov and Toptunov manually with great difficulty opened the control valves on the two threads of the feed pipe, after which they climbed through the rubble to the twenty-seventh mark and, standing knee-deep in water with fuel, began to open the valves. Neither Akimov and Toptunov, nor Nekhaev, Orlov and Uskov, who helped them, could open the other two valves on the left and right threads of the pipeline ^{[6] [7]} .

At 7 hours and 40 minutes in the morning, Akimov and Toptunov were still on the block when the shift supervisor Viktor Smagin went to replace them ^[8] . According to Smagin, Akimov and Toptunov by this moment were already swollen, dark brown-brown, hardly spoke. Akimov, barely twisting his swollen tongue, said to Smagin:

Akimov died of radiation sickness at the 6th Moscow Clinical Hospital on May 11, 1986 ^[1] . Until his death, Akimov, while he could speak, repeated: “I did everything right. I don’t understand why this happened ” ^[10] . Toptunov survived Akimov for 3 days and died on May 14, 1986 ^[1] .

By decree of the President of Ukraine No. 1156/2008 of December 12, 2008, Alexander Akimov was awarded the Order for Courage of the III degree ^[1] .

In 2006, the BBC made the film Surviving the Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster ( Eng. Surviving Disaster: Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster ), in which the role of Akimov was played by British actor Alex Low .

In 2019, the HBO mini-series Chernobyl was released, in which the role of Akimov was played by British actor Sam Troton .

• Ryzhikov L. X. So why did the reactor of the IV block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explode? // Star. - 1994. - No. 2 . - S. 133-152 .
• Tarakanov N. D. Signal of Chernobyl: [On the work of the military. liquidators for the decontamination of the territory of nuclear power plants, as well as extensive. territories of Ukraine, Belarus and west. districts of the RSFSR] // Far East. - 1991. - No. 3 . - S. 108-131 .
• Medvedev G.U. Chernobyl notebook // New World. - 1989. - No. 6 .
• Medvedev G. Nuclear tan. - M .: MK-Periodika, 2002 .-- 510 s.