The widow of one of the firefighters Vasily Ignatenko, who participated in extinguishing the fire at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Lyudmila shared her memories of those terrible events.
The woman said that her husband ordered her on that fateful night to close all the windows of the house and go to bed. He explained that there was a fire at the station, and promised to return soon.
“I didn’t hear the explosion itself.” I saw only flames. “It was as if the whole sky was glowing,” Lyudmila said.
According to her, the firefighters went there wearing cloth jackets. Ignatenko stressed that they were not told that there was radiation there.
“They thought they were putting out a normal rooftop fire.” Vasya later said that the graphite under his feet was as hot as coal in a fire. The shoes were melting. They kicked him away, this graphite…they weren’t told that. “They didn’t know,” says the firefighter’s widow.Verse Regnum».
Veteran liquidator of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster Nikolai Bondarenko said that his team was asked to wash off the radiation with laundry soap under cold water.