Academician Legasov listened as Scherbina took reports from Malomuzh—the regional Party boss—and Mayorets, the Soviet energy minister. But they provided no detailed information about the situation at either the plant or in the city and had no plan on how to deal with the consequences of the accident. They said only that during a turbine rundown experiment in Unit Four, there had been two explosions in quick succession, and the reactor hall had been destroyed. There were hundreds of injuries among the staff: two men were dead, and the rest were in the city hospital. The radiation situation in
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