It was 1994, it was autumn, November. The tugboat “Danube-31” made a regular routine, pushing ahead two barges loaded with fertilizers. He had to go through the locks and descend from the reservoir to the lower level of the Kama River. This difference in water surfaces creates the pressure needed to rotate the hydroelectric turbines.
Everything was as always. A caravan of ships entered the upper airlock, and water began to be discharged from it. The further development of events came as a surprise to both the hydraulic construction personnel and the tugboat crew. The two fishermen who surprised the fish on the shore most likely did not even have time to realize what was happening.
What happened got its name - the accident at the Kama hydroelectric station. This is not entirely fair and correct, because the station and the locks are different structures. And their story is different, and they are built separately. But everyone understands what is at stake, so this definition has taken root and is now used everywhere.
The sequence of events is as follows: after the start of the water discharge, the lower gates suddenly opened. The resulting rapid flow carried away both the tugboat and the barges behind them, and by inertia they demolished the next gate. Everything happened very quickly, in just a few seconds. The fishermen washed away by the wave died, there were two of them. Actually, they should not have been there, the forbidden zone, but, in their misfortune, they entered there.
To understand how the accident at the Kama hydroelectric station could have happened, we should recall its history. This construction began in 1932. Five years built the first jumper and gateway, which became the basis of the future station.
Then other priority facilities appeared - the Kuibyshev hydroelectric station and the Solikamsk hydroelectric complex. The construction was frozen, and the workers, among whom, as usual in those years, the majority were prisoners, were transferred to new places with the equipment.
After the war, the canned object was remembered, and work again began to boil on watts (sand-clay shallows). The project has been finalized. By 1954, the turbines began to produce the first electricity.
For unknown reasons, the state commission came to accept the object only after 10 years. Perhaps the builders did not insist on acceptance for some reason. The accident at the Kama hydroelectric station occurred much later, but who knows if this is natural, because it could have happened on any of the days of these three decades.
The station turned out to be unique. Unlike other similar structures, it was conceived as a heavy-duty construction, which even bombing is not afraid of. The dam and the building in which the turbines are located form a single whole. The generated energy exceeds half a megawatt. In 1913, all power plants of the Russian Empire provided the same power.
The causes of accidents at hydropower plants are different, the main of which is often called wear. This is not surprising, because such structures are not built for a year, and even more than one decade. When the public finds out the age of such an object, people who are not familiar with the specifics of construction are surprised and indignant: “of course, such junk should have collapsed itself!” However, this is not a matter of years of operation, but of efforts aimed at maintaining the structure in working condition.
After the accident at the Kama hydroelectric station, the government commission found that there was virtually no maintenance of the structure during the entire period of its operation. In addition, it turned out that the project was by no means flawless. This is also not surprising, the idea of building such gateways is constantly changing, as well as technology and materials.
The accident at the hydroelectric power station did not lead to the consequences that would have made it possible to speak of it as a disaster. The gates were able to quickly close, preventing critical leakage of water from the reservoir. The tug was almost uninjured, unlike the gates and two barges that could not be restored. The main reason was the inability of the crew to moor in the airlock, which would prevent a strike. And the victims are two fishermen ...