The story of the only Hungarian to survive Chernobyl without getting ill from radiation
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Although they may not have known, the people deployed to the reactor blast in Chernobyl basically signed their own death warrant when they went into action.
It was as if they had stepped into an enormous X-ray machine, the free-flying particles technically disrupted the molecules of their bodies, but not many got away from those who were not directly by block 4, but nearby the power plant, reported Blikk.
Dr Zoltán Horváth, university professor, was asleep at the time of the first blast at 1:30 in the morning on April 26, 1986, only about 10 kilometres away from the reactor. He was invited to the region by the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture, as he was the chief engineer of the State Farm in Bácsalmás, to ensure an experiment involving the seeds of 20 sunflower hybrids with his colleagues. He already started sowing on April 25, and the locals even showed him the power plant in the distance.
“The buildings could be well seen. The next day, on April 26, we continued our work. When I glanced at the power plant, I immediately noticed that the roof had been roundish the previous day, but that day, it was strangely flat,” said Zoltán Horváth, who at the time had no idea what had happened, or how much danger he was actually in.
The agricultural expert travelled to Kyiv with his colleagues after finishing their work. When István Monori, Consul General in Kyiv gave them two train tickets, he started getting suspicious; they were immediately sent to Odesa, even though they were initially supposed to spend the night in Kyiv with Monori.
Could what happened in Chernobyl happen in Paks? Read more HERE.
“We flew home on April 30. They had a Népszabadság on the plane, in which they had written two lines about a reactor blast in Chernobyl. When we landed on Ferihegy, the Yugoslav passengers were awaited by doctors in white coats with radiation measurers. That was when I thought, I had been standing there nearby the power plant hours after the blast,” said Zoltán Horváth.