If memory serves well, it is a while I read the Chernobyl reports (Soviet and IAEA), they actually did think that might happen. After all, it was the forst time

If memory serves well, it is a while I read the Chernobyl reports (Soviet and IAEA), they actually did think that might happen. After all, it was the forst time something of this magnitide happened ever, so nobody knew anything for sure. And one thing is sure, the Soviets didn't take any risks during clean up. I actually have a hard time imagining a similar clean up, and Fukushima was nowhere near as bad, in the West. It is also true that everyone, first and foremost the USSR and then the West, was happy to downplay the accident and, as rather direct consequence, screw over the liquidators when it came to compensation. The collapse of the USSR didn't help neither.