Back in Moscow, the theoretical physicists continued to insist that the molten corium still moving somewhere deep inside Reactor Number Four remained a terrible threat. But there was fierce disagreement about their findings. The atomic specialists from the Kurchatov Institute and Sredmash dismissed them as the opinions of academic interlopers who lacked any practical experience in nuclear reactors. They argued that it was almost certain that the corium would stop melting through the basement levels of Unit Four long before it breached the deepest foundations of the building. And the
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