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of an entire river basin system, making thousands of square miles uninhabitable for decades and totally destroying the agriculture of an entire region.
The fact that it was not quite as catastrophic as what is described above is due to the incredible and heroic self-sacrifice of the Soviet fire-fighters who tunnelled beneath the molten mass, entering the radioactive zone, to build a shield of concrete beneath the power station and wall it off forever. In the meantime, the plume of radioactivity had risen high above western Europe and, with the rain, dropped, deadeningly, in Sweden. Europe and the world were faced with an ecological disaster which could be much greater than that caused by an accidental firing of a powerful military weapon. Suddenly, the 'peaceful uses of atomic energy' did not seem so peaceful any more.
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