ROBERT SCHEER CHERNOBYL: A LIVING NIGHTMARE SCARY ENOUGH ALREADY, THE RUSSIAN-BUILT NUCLEAR PLANTS ARE CAUSE FOR REAL Y2K JITTERS 33REGION 14} Edition

• Published in: Pittsburgh post-gazette (Pittsburgh, Pa. 1978)
• Main Author: ROBERT SCHEER IS A LOS ANGELES TIMES CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pittsburgh, Pa Pittsburgh Post - Gazette 02.12.1999
• Subjects: Velikhov, Yevgeny; LOS ANGELES
• ISSN: 1068-624X

The two-hour van ride from the Kiev train station to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant took us through numerous checkpoints in a desolate countryside where 136,000 people had been evacuated. Eerie is the only word that can properly embrace the loneliness of deserted hamlets and farms where humans were afraid to live. Clothing still hung on the lines uncollected almost a year after the disaster. Finally, at the nuclear power plant gate, after being outfitted with outer garments to ward off radiation and Geiger counters to measure it, I experienced the dubious distinction of being the first U.S. newspaper reporter permitted to visit the control room and turbines of the plant adjacent to the one that had suffered a meltdown on April 26, 1986. That's ominous because the meltdown at Chernobyl was caused by disruption when engineers shut down the operation abruptly to conduct safety experiments. Any sudden interruption of power to the remaining nuclear plant in Chernobyl - or elsewhere - because of a Y2K computer glitch might produce horrible results.