Vladimir Konstantinovich Bulygin, who was in charge of the naval fleet's radiation accidents, received the Hero of the Soviet Union distinction for his work.
It consists of two piers, a stationary mooring bay, a sanitation facility, spent fuel pools in building #5 (unused since 1989), three 1,000 m3 (35,000 cu ft) dry storage containers, a 40,000-tonne crane, an open-air field for storing spent nuclear fuel containers, a security checkpoint, and other technical facilities.
Inside, the building was dilapidated, electric equipment in dangerous condition, the roof letting through sights of the Aurora Borealis, and, most terrifyingly, colossal beta particle contamination levels and travelling gamma waves reflected from plates and walls.
The drums were placed into the cells, displacing water, which immediately turned into radioactive vapour, due to the heat emitted from the fuel assemblies, and wind scattered it over the entire territory of the base.
In his book Andreev Nuclear Bay, Anatoly N. Safonov writes, citing data, that the bottoms of the containers were not covered in steel and allowed groundwater to seep through.
When building #5's repository was designed, it was assumed that the water would be kept at a constant temperature by heat from the nuclear assemblies suspended under the surface.
In order to solve this problem, the ice was melted using steam from the boiler, in blatant violation of radiation safety protocol.
After the left-hand pool was covered with protective lids, cleanup workers cut windows inside them with torches in order to feed in a capturing device that lifted drums from the bottom.
From the memoirs of the cleanup effort's leader after the accident, A. N. Safonov: Everyone present was terrified, knowing there were numerous nuclear waste drums at the bottom, radiating up to 17,000 R/h.
Just then, my friend and savior Semenov, risking his own life, freed my legs from under the nuclear waste drums, and we emerged at the pool's surface.
The working sailors then used regular shovels to pour the fuel into the cement-encased vertical steel pipes of the storage containers.
These actions led to accumulation of critical mass and subsequent uncontrolled chain reactions, glowing from Cherenkov radiation and emitting a buzzing sound, which quickly subsided.
The navy usually concealed such information to avoid taking the blame… Blue-green flashes of light were also observed in the left-hand pool in building #5 during the work on lifting nuclear waste drums from the bottom.
That they were uncontrolled chain reactions was confirmed by the physicist, senior lieutenant Leonid Grigorievich Konobritski, who served then in building #5.