It's certainly true that Chernobyl, while an accident in the sense that no one intentionally set it off, was also the deliberate product of a culture of cronyism, laziness, and a deep-seated indifference toward the general population. The literature on the subject is pretty unanimous in its opinion that the Soviet system had taken a poorly designed reactor adn then staffed it with a group of incompetents. It then proceeded, as the interviews in this book attest, to lie about the disaster in the most criminal way. In the crucial first ten days, when the reactor core was burning and releasing a steady stream of highly radioactive material into the surrounding areas, the authorities repeatedly claimed that the situation was under control. . In the week after the accident, while refusing to admit to the world that anything really serious had gone wrong, the Soviets poured thousands of men into the breach. The machines they brought broke down because of the radiation. The humans wouldn't break down until weeks or months later, at which point they'd die horribly. Svetlana Alexievich
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up. - Sarah Ockler

  2. There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.' No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster. - Dalai Lama Xiv

  3. There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. - George Bernard Shaw

  4. The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think. - Horace Walpole

  5. Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. - Jean Racine

More Quotes By Svetlana Alexievich
  1. Death is the fairest thing in the world. No one's ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyone - the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no fairness on earth.

  2. Is there anything more frightening than people?

  3. How were you taken prisoner?' The interrogator asked my father. 'The Finns pulled me out of a lake.' 'You traitor! You were saving your own skin instead of the Motherland.' My father also considered himself guilty. That's how they'd been trained.

  4. I'm afraid of freedom, it feels like some drunk guy could show up and burn my dacha at any moment.

  5. The mysterious Russian soul... Everyone wants to understand it. They read Dostoevsky: what's behind that soul of theirs? Well, behind our soul there's just more soul.

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