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This work is licensed
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Postmodern Village
est. 1999
e-mail * terms * privacy

Time. Date. Year.
by Francine DuBois

Nuclear plants are carefully designed to contain and prevent the release of radioactivity. . . . In any case, a meltdown happens slowly, there would be plenty of time to follow emergency procedures.

Besides, radioactive contamination does not mean the land is permanently ruined or populations destroyed. A thriving modern city now stands at Hiroshima, which was contaminated by the first atomic bomb dropped in 1945. The survivors of the atomic explosions received a radiation dose thousands of times greater than any member of the public could get from a nuclear plant. - "Energy's Future Rests in Your Hands," American Nuclear Society pamphlet, June 1981

In Chernobyl the destructive potential of at least one hundred atom bombs was unleashed. - chernobyl.info

About 15,000 people were killed and 50,000 left handicapped in the emergency clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, according to a group representing those who worked in the relief operations.

The number of invalids caused by the radiation has multiplied twelvefold since 1991, says Viacheslav Grishin, president of the Chernobyl League. - BBC Report, Saturday, 22 April 2000

1:23:40 a.m., April 26, 1986
Chernobyl, Ukraine (then USSR)

The emergency shutdown fails.

As with any story, it takes a few days until all the facts are straight,
Sifted like anthrax or confectioner's sugar on waffles,
Powdery decor, melting in delicate mouths that never speak of such
Harshness as war, disfigurement, or illness. Mouths that talk only of
"Good things" over fresh coffee, talk on cell phones, are painted
With designer animal fats in fashion colors while at stoplights.

We never heard about them anymore, the walking wounded,
Given thyroid cancer (or worse) by a experiment gone wrong and a
Government cover-up that prevented medicine distribution before long-term damage set in.

They are forgotten to a nation much more obsessed with
Who Joe Millionaire will select to be his fiance
Until he hits the advertising circuit.

Till KFC do we part.

Francine's Version -- Hezekiah's Version
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