Turbine engineer Yuri Korneyev was busy shutting down Turbine Number Eight when Anatoly Baranov, the shift electrician, ran in. Baranov began displacing the hydrogen in both Number Seven and Number Eight turbine generators with nitrogen, averting the possibility of a further explosion. By the time they had finished, an eerie silence had fallen around them and their lifeless machinery. They stepped outside onto a small balcony, to smoke. Only much later did they discover the cost of their cigarette break: the street beneath them was scattered with blocks of reactor graphite, which irradiated
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