‘I was the last person in Chernobyl’s control room and will never get over what I saw’

Oleksiy Breus entered Chernobyl’s control room hours after the 1986 disaster and witnessed colleagues dying from radiation as his own skin turned brown like a suntan.

The world’s most devastating nuclear accident obliterated a city in unimaginable ways – particularly for Oleksiy Breus, who voluntarily stepped into the control room mere hours following the calamitous blast.

Chernobyl’s 1986 disaster sent shockwaves through the Ukrainian population for generations – yet the radioactive contamination also infected Oleksiy during a single shift.

The 67 year old, who began his employment at the facility in 1982, was the last man to be in the control room after reactor No 4 malfunctioned during a safety examination.

He informed the BBC that the acclaimed drama series Chernobyl didn’t overstate the devastating, swift and observable impact on human physiology that the blast inflicted.

“It looked like it would be a mass grave,” Oleksiy told to Sky News, recalling his journey to work that fateful day in 1986. “I was sure that the whole [night] shift had died there. At the moment of explosion I was in Pripyat, in my flat.

“I was sleeping tightly, I didn’t hear, I didn’t see anything. In the morning I was to go to work, and so I did. I knew nothing about the disaster, I just got on a bus and went to work.”, reports the Mirror.

“As I was coming close to the station, I saw from the bus that the block was destroyed. I always say that my hair stood on its end when I saw that.

“I didn’t understand why me and other workers were brought there. But it turned out that there was still much work to be done.”

Oleksiy had conversations with Oleksandr Akimov, the shift supervisor, and technician Leonid Toptunov in the direct aftermath.

Oleksiy said: “They were not looking good, to put it mildly. It was clear they felt sick. They were very pale. Toptunov had literally turned white.”

Tragically, both succumbed to acute radiation syndrome (ARS) within weeks.

He continued: “I saw other colleagues who worked that night. Their skin had a bright red colour. They later died in hospital in Moscow.

“Radiation exposure, red skin, radiation burns and steam burns were what many people talked about but it was never shown like this.”

As for his own experience, he ended the day looking as if he’d been sunbathing. He shared: “When I finished my shift, my skin was brown, as if I had a proper suntan all over my body. My body parts not covered by clothes – such as hands, face and neck – were red”.

In the aftermath of the explosion, 29 power plant workers and firefighters lost their lives to ARS, as per Soviet officials’ reports. Two more fatalities occurred due to injuries from the accident.

Reflecting on the catastrophic day, Oleksiy admitted that any attempts at damage control seemed futile from the start.

Plant director Viktor Bryukhanov, chief engineer Nikolai Fomin and deputy chief engineer Anatoly Dyatlov were handed 10-year sentences in a labour camp for their part in the disaster.

Speaking about Dyatlov, Oleksiy said: “The operators were afraid of him. When he was present at the block, it created tension for everyone. But no matter how strict he was, he was still a high-level professional.”

Vasily Ignatenko was amongst the initial firefighters dispatched to combat the blaze directly. Devastatingly, having travelled from nearby Pripyat, he remained unaware of the radiation danger.

Ignatenko succumbed to acute radiation syndrome on 13 May 1986.

In a chilling twist, three plant workers were forced to plunge beneath the tunnel to operate a faulty drainage valve, preventing the leak from contaminating the water supply and potentially triggering a catastrophic explosion.

Oleksiy Ananenko, a chief engineer from one of the reactor sections, described his decision to dive down and repair the valve. “It was our job. If I didn’t do it, they could just fire me. How would I find another job after that?”.

Miners were subsequently deployed to excavate beneath the reactor, creating room for a heat exchanger designed to prevent the reactor’s core from polluting the water table and potentially sparking an unstoppable cascade of fatalities.

Heartbreakingly, some Pripyat locals ventured out to witness the unfolding disaster and fell ill as a result. Ananenko recalled: “In hospital, I was treated with a guy who biked to that bridge in the morning on 26 April to watch it. He got a mild type of acute radiation syndrome, a doctor said.

“Another friend treated at the same time said he had a date with his girlfriend close to the [Pripyat] bridge that night. He had health problems afterwards.”

Oleksiy believes that in his view, Chernobyl galvanised the Soviet government into taking action and brought an end to their culture of concealment. He stated: “For example, that useless secrecy, which became one of the reasons behind the Chernobyl disaster. When the operators pushed the red button, the reactor didn’t stop but exploded.”