Valeri Bezpalov, Alexie Ananenko and Boris Baranov were brave men who volunteered to use SCUBA equipment to swim through the pooled water to find and release the safety valves for the sluice gates to drain this water away. The men knew that the levels of radiation under the main reactor in the water would be lethal. All that they asked was that their families be taken care of after their deaths.
The action of these three men had taken almost certainly saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people throughout Europe. [x]
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