Ten days after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, officials discovered a new, potentially greater threat: a massive pool of water had collected beneath the melting core of Reactor 4. If the molten fuel (corium) reached this water, it could have triggered a massive steam explosion. Experts feared this second blast would have been powerful enough to destroy the remaining three reactors and render much of Europe uninhabitable.
The men seen suiting up in the photo were not professional divers, but power plant employees who knew the facility's layout: Alexei Ananenko, a mechanical engineer who knew where the release valves were located; Valeri Bespalov, a senior engineer who assisted in the search; Boris Baranov, the shift supervisor whose job was to provide light for the others.
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| Alexei Ananenko (second from left), Valeri Bezpalov (center), and Boris Baranov (far right) preparing in protective equipment during the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986 in Pripyat, Ukraine. |
When asked, Ananenko’s response was simple: “How could I refuse, when I was the only person on shift who knew where the valves were located?”
Equipped with basic respirators, wetsuits, and flashlights, they waded through knee-to-waist-high radioactive water in the dark to manually drain the chambers. Despite their lights failing during the mission, they successfully located the valves by touch, following a main pipe until they reached the sluice gates.
For years, popular legend claimed that all three men died of radiation poisoning shortly after the mission. However, reality was much different. All three men survived the immediate aftermath of the mission. Boris Baranov lived until 2005, when he died of a heart attack at age 65. Alexei Ananenko and Valeri Bespalov were still alive as of 2018 and were personally awarded the “Order for Courage” by the Ukrainian president.
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