Everyone present agreed that they must seal up the reactor completely as quickly as possible. To take control of the situation, they moved to set up a special seven-person operations group, headed by Prime Minister Ryzhkov and including Dolgikh, Chebrikov, the minister of the interior, and the minister of defense. The group, granted emergency powers to command all Party and ministerial authorities throughout the Union, would coordinate the disaster response from Moscow, placing all the resources of the centralized state at the disposal of the government commission in Chernobyl.
