And yet—despite the best efforts of Zborovsky and his men—several hundred cubic meters of water remained gathered in the suppression compartments, and it was not until the flow of corium reached this that the China Syndrome finally came to an end. When the lava dropped into the dregs of the water in the suppression pool, it cooled harmlessly, and the molten heart of Reactor Number Four at last ended its journey—a gray ceramic pumice floating on the surface of a radioactive pond, but just centimeters away from the foundations separating the building from the earth below.
