{"id":2193,"date":"2011-06-07T21:34:39","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T03:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asylumeclectica.com\/grim\/?p=2193"},"modified":"2011-06-07T21:34:39","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T03:34:39","slug":"mfdj-060711","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=2193","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour For June 7, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Sacrificial Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev, Deputy Head of the Executive Committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association, on the aftermath of the Chernobyl explosion:<\/p>\n

There was a moment when there existed the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn’t get into it — with the water they would have formed a critical mass. \u00a0The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. \u00a0This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. \u00a0Can you imagine it? \u00a0A European catastrophe. \u00a0So here was the task: who would dive in there and open the bolt on the safety valve? \u00a0They promised them a car, an apartment, a dacha, aid for their families until the end of time. \u00a0They searched for volunteers. \u00a0And they found them! \u00a0The boys dove, many times, and they opened that bolt, and the unit was given 7000 rubles. \u00a0They forgot about the cars and apartments they promised — but that’s not why they dove! \u00a0Not for the material, least of all for the material promises. \u00a0[Becomes upset<\/em>.] Those people don’t exist anymore, just the documents in our museum, with their names. \u00a0But what if they hadn’t done it? \u00a0In terms of our readiness for self-sacrifice, we have no equals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Culled from:\u00a0Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

This makes me wonder: what do you suppose would happen in America if a situation like this occurred? \u00a0Would the U.S. government be too concerned about lawsuits to send someone down there and simply allow the explosion to occur, as it sat around in a bureaucratic stalemate, unable to make the necessary decisions? \u00a0Or would it assign a Navy seal or two to do the dirty work and keep it hush hush as they died from radiation poisoning – making up some story to cover up the real reason for their deaths? \u00a0Are Americans by nature too selfish to volunteer for a suicide mission like this? \u00a0Do they lack the community mentality found in a communist nation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Sacrificial Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev, Deputy Head of the Executive Committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association, on the aftermath of the Chernobyl explosion: There was a moment when there existed the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}