11. After The Explosion, People Kept Working
The explosion at the Chernobyl power plant occurred on April 26, 1986, at 1:30 in the morning. The blast came from the no. 4 reactor and immediately a fire broke out as things started to melt. While employees scrambled to put out the fire and secure the area, two men died. While rescue workers recovered one of the men later, the other man remained in the rumble and many people believe is still there. Even with all the chaos, the leader of the plant informed his employees to keep working.
The staff engineer felt that no damage was done to the core, so as long as the employees remained away from the firemen trying to distinguish the fire and didn’t mess around in the area, they would be fine. But the radiation continued to pour from the no. 4 reactor as more damage happened during the explosion than the staff believed. While no one is certain if the employees, engineer, or anyone knew that large amounts of radiation were leaking from the reactor, we do know that over 100 employees passed away from radiation poisoning.