Word: chernobyl
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...most frightening part of the nuclear accident was the radiation that spewed from the reactor and then was carried by winds on its silent, deadly path. In the first few hours of the Chernobyl disaster, lethal forms of iodine and cesium were released into the atmosphere. They were accompanied by other highly dangerous radioactive emissions. At first the radiation cloud drifted above some of the Soviet Union's best farmland, but then it moved north toward Scandinavia. By week's end an ominous pall of radiation had spread across Eastern Europe and toward the shores of the Mediterranean...
...damage to the earth around Chernobyl was probably equally severe. Up to 60 sq. mi. of Soviet farmland is likely to remain severely contaminated for decades, unless steps are taken to remove the tainted topsoil. Reason: cesium 137 and strontium 90, two radioactive particles spewed by the blaze, decay very slowly. It could take decades for the ground to be free of them. Together with the shorter-lived iodine 131, the substances promise to pose short- and long-term problems for people, crops and animals. Says James Warf, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California: "I wouldn...
...week's end, when the traveling White House reached Tokyo, the Administration's anger at Moscow had grown. In his Saturday radio address, Reagan declared, "The Soviets owe the world an explanation. A full accounting of what happened at Chernobyl and what is happening now is the least the world community has a right to expect...
...fearful of its health effects. Said Swedish Energy Minister Birgitta Dahl: "We shall reiterate our demand that the whole Soviet civilian nuclear program be subject to international control." In West Germany, Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher urged Moscow to shut all nuclear-power plants similar to the one at Chernobyl. The West Germans asked that an international team be allowed to visit the site. Danish Prime Minister Poul Schluter called the situation "intolerable and extremely worrying." In Poland, where officials said there could be a sharp increase in cancer rates in the next two to three decades as a result...
Because the Soviets kept details secret, Moscow and the Western press contradicted each other with pronouncements that left the world mystified about the actual developments at Chernobyl. While one U.S. news agency reported 2,000 dead and others emphasized the serious dangers the radiation created, the Soviets insisted that only two people had died. When some Western papers carried increasingly sensational but unconfirmed accounts of the reactor's condition, TASS reported that the fire was under control. At week's end the official Soviet news agency buttressed earlier claims of the plant's safety by reporting that Politburo Members Nikolai...