AP Was There: Early Chernobyl victims buried in Moscow cemetery
FILE – Tatyana Ignatenko, the mother of firefighter Vasily Ignatenko, grieves near his grave at Mitinskoye Cemetery in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday, April 26, 2006, the 20th anniversary of the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Vasily Ignatenko's crew was the first to respond to the disaster. Credit: AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko
EDITOR'S NOTE: In the weeks after the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was difficult to get any information about the scope of the disaster, aside from terse announcements from the government of the Soviet Union.
Acting on a telephone tip, then-Associated Press Moscow correspondent Carol J. Williams and another Western journalist drove to a cemetery in the northwestern part of the capital, where they discovered the simple graves of some of the victims. The journalists were briefly detained by police at the cemetery and accused of trespassing but were able to see workers digging the graves for the victims.
As part of its coverage of the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, AP is republishing Williams' story from June 24, 1986:
'Democrats say this is a misuse of taxpayer funds' Nassau Republicans awarded over $1 million in taxpayer-funded legal contracts to the one-man law firm of Sheharyar Ali, a longtime GOP ally. Ali's father is an adviser to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa and Newsday Nassau County politics reporter Bahar Ostadan have the story.
'Democrats say this is a misuse of taxpayer funds' Nassau Republicans awarded over $1 million in taxpayer-funded legal contracts to the one-man law firm of Sheharyar Ali, a longtime GOP ally. Ali's father is an adviser to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa and Newsday Nassau County politics reporter Bahar Ostadan have the story.
