Chernobyl: First Victims · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Oleksa of My Reflections writes about Chernobyl and its first victims: “However, it is the plight of the 14 firefighters that made the greatest impression on me. They arrived on the station mere minutes after the blast and had to extinguish fire with their bare hands, almost literally, throwing the radioctive graphite off the roof back to the reactor. It was a truly suicidal mission and they all died two weeks later at a hospital in Moscow.”