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In Ukrainian villages, high
fences surround most houses.
Behind each fence is often chained a dog, trained
to be
submissive to its masters and vicious to everyone else.
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Thanks to all who entered my
Chernobyl quiz on Saturday. Jake DeWoskin, who I last saw in high school,
wins the prize for submitting the first 100% correct answers:
True or False:
1.
After the Chernobyl accident, soldiers shot dogs to prevent them from spreading
radiation.
TRUE. Igor
Kostin, the first photojournalist at Chernobyl after the accident, said this:
“Our first priority was to save the people. As for the land and the animals, we
contented ourselves with simple, drastic solutions. The gun for the dogs and
cats, the shovel and the bulldozer for the land. These were our only weapons to
fight radioactivity.”
2.
After the Chernobyl accident, conscripts removed radioactive debris using
nothing more than shovels and wheelbarrows.
TRUE.
For liquidators, the most dangerous jobs involved tunneling under the
melted reactor and cleaning the adjacent rooftop of reactor 3. With nothing but
shovels and wheelbarrows, thousands of men removed chunks of nuclear fuel and
graphite exploded from the reactor core. Radiation was so extreme that shifts
were limited to one to two minutes.
3. Thieves have stolen
radioactive radiators from the Chernobyl zone to sell for scrap metal.
TRUE.
My friend Sasha Sirota, who runs the evacuee organization Pripyat.com,
knew that radiators were being stolen from Pripyat and they finally caught it
on video here. How did the thieves get in? The only possible way is by
bribing the Zone security.
4. Last month, a section of roof
at the Chernobyl plant collapsed due to heavy snow.
TRUE.
This happened Feb. 12, 2013. Read the Ukrainian government report here.
Though the collapse was apparently not dangerous, it hints at the general
deterioration of the Chernobyl plant.
All TRUE. All these crazy things did in fact happen in Chernobyl. And believe me you, this list is only the tip of the iceberg.
Up next: managing the disaster.
