I've recently developed a fascination with Chernobyl and finding out what happened there, so I'm reading Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster.

On April 26, 1984 the reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded and released one hundred times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (chernobyl.info). I was 12 at the time, but I really have no memory of this event, although I do remember being afraid of nuclear war when I was a kid.

The first interview in the book is with a woman who's husband was one of the firemen who responded to the explosion - he died 14 days later of radiation exposure. She was 6 months pregnant with their child and she wouldn't leave his side. The baby died too, from radiation. Here she describes what happens after her husband's funeral, which was in Moscow:

Right away they bought us plane tickets back home. For the next day. The whole time there was someone with us in plainclothes with a military bearing. He wouldn't even let us out of the dorm for some food for the trip. God forbid we might talk with someone - especially me. As if I could talk by then. I couldn't even cry. When we were leaving, the woman on duty counted all the towels and all the sheets. She folded them right away and put them into a polyethylene bag. They probably burnt them. We paid for the dormitory ourselves. For fourteen nights. It was a hospital for radiation poisoning. Fourteen nights. That's how long it takes a person to die.

People were buried in lead coffins with concrete poured on top. And the Russian propaganda machine was in full swing:

Every day they brought the paper. I'd just read the headlines: 'Chernobyl - A Place of Achievement.' 'The Reactor Has Been Defeated!' 'Life Goes On.' We had political officers, they'd hold political discussions with us. We were told that we had to win. Against whom? The atom? Physics? The universe? Victory is not an event for us, but a process. Life is a struggle. An overcoming. That's why we have this love of floods and fires and other catastrophes. We need an opportunity to demonstrate our 'courage and heroism.'" - Arkady Filin, liquidator.

Also from Filin:

Our political officer read notices in the paper about our 'high political consciousness and meticulous organization,' about the fact that four days after the catastrophe the red flag was already flying over the fourth reactor. It blazed forth. In a month the radiation had devoured it. So they put up another flag. And in another month they put up another one. I tried to imagine how the soldiers felt going up on the roof to replace that flag. These were suicide missions. What would you call this? Soviet paganism? Live sacrifice?

Kind of makes you draw parallels to America's propaganda machine vis-a-vis the "war on terror" and our obsession with 9/11 heroes. Seems like when you have everyone focusing on heroes and heroism and patriotism, it takes the spotlight away from the utter criminality of the event at hand.

Liquidator's went into "The Zone," the 30 kilometre area that was evacuated around Chernobyl, and measured radiation and basically had to raze villages. Another quote from Filin:

In the house the stove's on, the lard is frying. You put a dosimeter to it, and you find it's not a stove, it's a little nuclear reactor...At the reactor the firefighters were stomping on burning fuel, and it was glowing, but they didn't know what it was.

I could sit here quoting from the book all day - it's utterly fascinating and horrifying and depressing and just so unbelievable - but I'll just give one more:

After Chernobyl - there was an exhibit of children's drawings, one of them had a stork walking through a field, and then under it, 'No one told the stork.' Those were my feelings too. But I had to work. We went around the region collecting samples of water, earth, and taking them to Minsk. Our assistants were grumbling: 'We're carrying hotcakes.' We had no defense, no special clothing. You'd be sitting in the front seat, and behind you there were samples just glowing. - Zoya Danilovna Bruk, environmental inspector.

Unreal. 30 kilometers...what is that, 50 miles? It makes me try to imagine the 50 mile radius around Seabrook being evacuated. That would include my mom and sister, and most likely the entire city of Boston. It's incomprehensible. And looking at this list, I realize I am basically surrounded by nuclear reactors. Pass the wine, please...