There were personal heroics but the Soviet response was a catastrophe, it was Sweden that sounded the alarm and the Soviets allowed a May Day parade of children

There were personal heroics but the Soviet response was a catastrophe, it was Sweden that sounded the alarm and the Soviets allowed a May Day parade of children to march through the cloud in Kiev... "For 36 hours after the explosion, people were given no reliable information about it and left virtually on their own. They never received instructions on how to protect themselves and their children. Radiation levels that according to Soviet laws were supposed to trigger an automatic public warning about the dangers of radiation exposure had already been recorded in the early hours of April 26—but were ignored by one official after another. Finally, people were asked to gather their belongings and wait on the street..." https://www.history.com/news/chernobyl-disaster-coverup https://www.history.com/news/chernobyl-disaster-coverup https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/remembering-soviet-response-chornobyl-robert-mcconnell/ https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/remembering-soviet-res...