Boosey & Hawkes (Hendon Music)
On April 25th -26th, 1986 the world's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, in what is now the Ukraine. While testing reactor number 4, numerous safety procedures were disregarded, causing the cooling talk. At 1:23am the chain reaction in the reactor bursts out of control creating explosions, and a fireball that blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid. The Chernobyl accident killed more than 30 people immediately, and as a result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding 20-mile radius, 135,00 people had to be evacuated. By April 29th, severe levels of radiation reached Germany, where this photo was taken in the weeks following the Chernobyl disaster.
Translated as: "Oh God, It rains!" – this graffiti illuminates the severity of ones actions; how an act of man can take our most valuable natural resource, rain, and make it deadly.
—David T. Little
Princeton, NJ, 12.4.06