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- <text id=89TT0617>
- <title>
- Mar. 06, 1989: World Notes:Soviet Union
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Mar. 06, 1989 The Tower Fiasco
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 49
- World Notes
- Soviet Union
- Dealing with The Fallout
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Nearly three years after the world's worst civilian nuclear
- disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev made his first visit to Chernobyl
- last week. The Soviet leader seemed intent on cleaning up the
- continuing environmental and political fallout from the
- accident. Soviet newspapers in recent weeks have reported the
- births of deformed farm animals and widespread radioactive
- contamination of land and food. Local workers surrounded
- Gorbachev to tell him of their worry about the health
- consequences.
- </p>
- <p> Clad in a white coat and cap, a sympathetic Gorbachev and
- his wife Raisa inspected the reopened facility, in the shadow of
- the entombed reactor No. 4, and stopped to ask the plant's staff
- about new safety measures. Gorbachev called the Chernobyl
- accident "very serious for the whole world," adding, "Through
- science and technology, we need to give energy to the nation,
- but safety remains the most important thing." Forty-eight hours
- later, the first unit of a twelve-year-old nuclear-power plant
- in Armenia was shut down. Under public pressure, authorities
- conceded that the operation was too risky in the earthquake
- zone.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-