Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

by Adam Higginbotham

The evacuation began five days later, sweeping up 363,000 children, as well as tens of thousands of nursing and expectant mothers, in an exodus of a half million people—the equivalent of a fifth of Kiev’s total population. It was a logistical task that dwarfed the initial effort to evacuate the thirty-kilometer zone and, from the outset, was overshadowed by the specter of panic. Thirty-three special trains ran on a shuttle schedule, departing every two hours from Kiev station; gaggles of grade school students clustered on the platforms, numbered paper labels pinned to their shirts, in case they got lost, and extra planes were provided for those who could not make the journey by rail. When the torrent of women and children overwhelmed the Pioneer camps and sanatoria of Ukraine, Soviet holidaymakers in resorts across the Caucasus were informed that their vacations were canceled, and evacuees found temporary homes from Odessa to Azerbaijan. Three days later, Kiev had become a city without children. No one could say when they might return.