Absolutely; hence "if Fukushima were Chernobyl". I don't mean to suggest that Japan should build a sarcophagus; I only mean to give an idea of the sort of time

Absolutely; hence "if Fukushima were Chernobyl". I don't mean to suggest that Japan should build a sarcophagus; I only mean to give an idea of the sort of timescale for significant engineering tasks that the Soviets were working with. They slammed it into high gear pretty rapidly.