There were 1,225 buses in all, painted in a kaleidoscope of colors, representing more than a dozen different Soviet transport enterprises: some red, some yellow, some green, and some blue; some half red, half white; others with a stripe—plus 250 trucks and other vehicles in support, including ambulances from the civil defense, repair trucks, and fuel tankers. At 2:00 p.m., a full day and a half after the pall of radionuclides had first begun drifting into the atmosphere, the motley caravan of vehicles waiting at the Pripyat city limits at last began to move. Maria Protsenko was waiting for
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