"For the the first month there were no procedures to halt radioactive products in Chernobyl. When there was it was fou that the lumber cut into boards was fine but the brooms were dangerously hot. All but one shipment of brooms had already been shipped."

I was on the commitee to pass or deny requests for food shipments from the Chernobyl area. One field adjacent to another might be unsafe but the other was safe, but the dust was free to blow and the water to flow. I learned how bad we humans are. I learned how bad I was. The rules said we had to dump dangerous dirt in dirt someplace else 6 feet deep and that surveys were to be done to be sure ground water was meters away. In practice the diggers would dig until they hit water and then usually didn't bother with the polyethelene plastic liners at all. etc

quotes from a book read out loud on the npr show THis American life this afternnon.

Its worth looking this show up later. It has the stories of the real people involved including the newly wed wife of a fireman who had radiation sickness within hours of exposure. She held his hand as he slept even though it was against the rules for anyone to touch him. Within days he began to cough up his lungs in large amounts and the rest of his organs were coming out as they were killed and disoloving from the inside out.
The accounts were read by actors in some cases and not the real victims, because some did not survive.