Mayday in Kiev - Watchtower

«The unleashed power of the atom changed everything

Save our mode of thinking, and we thus drift toward

Unparalleled catastrophes.»

— Albert Einstein

In a nation for a dangerous penchant for secrecy

A dread disaster at Chernobyl was concealed

As a poisoning cloud spread over the Eastern Bloc

Alarming information was reluctantly revealed

An explosion in Reactor Four — a fire refusing to cease

No containment walls preventing radioactive release

Evidence that peaceful technology had gone awry

More catastrophically than Windscale or TMI

Alert — Celebration in Kiev

Under glowing skies — Soviet lies

Alert — In nearby Poland

A shower of radiation

Children iodized

Mayday — A day of rejoice

A cry of distress

Severe political fallout — toxic exchange of words

Soviet obscurantism under verbal attack

Abroad, outraged countries appeal for information

Met with grudging riposte, hesitant placation

At home, TASS reports no danger — nothing to fear

As deadly elemental isotopes spew into the biosphere

«The unleashed power of the atom …" — A warning from the past

The benefits of technology are reversed by careless human error