“Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned to collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.” This is a quote from Markus Zusak’s book, The Book Thief. This quote comes from a book that makes the connection between beauty and devastation. Beautiful moments break through the darkness, providing the worst and best situations at the same time. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was among the worst radiation leaks in the world. The outcome was catastrophic, and cleanup efforts are still being carried out. Due to poor design and unfollowed protocol the power plant and most of the area around the plant was destroyed. The Soviets offered up utter silence, brushing the incident under the rug. Some victims say they can still see the “crimson glow;” it was shining. It was beautiful, but it was deadly.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was built in the late 70’s on the banks of the Pripyat River. On the
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But not everybody in this story can be blamed, Leonld Telyatnikov was the head of the fire department on scene. Without hesitation he and his twenty eight men went into the reactor with no respirators or any other safety equipment. In 2004 he died from cancer due to the accident. Alexander Akimov, the shift leader on this dreadful night, was not comfortable with doing tests on the unstable reactor. Fearful of losing his job, he reluctantly proceeded and died two weeks later from radiation sickness at the age of thirty three. Every story also has a big bad wolf, in this case he goes by the name of Anatoly Dyatlov; experiment supervisor. In 1987 he was found guilty of criminal mismanagement and potentially explosive enterprises. He was sentenced to ten years but was released at five. He blamed poor plant design for the disaster. He later died in 1995 of heart failure related to Chernobyl