“When the buildings materials specified by the architects of the Chernobyl station had proved unavailable, Brukhanov was forced to improvise: the plans called for fireproof cables, but when none could be found, the builders simply did the best they could.
When the Ministry of Energy in Moscow learned that the roof of the plant’s turbine hall had been covered with highly flammable bitumen, they ordered him to replace it. But the flame-retardant material specified for reroofing the structure – fifty meters wide and almost a kilometer long – was not even being manufactured in the USSR, so the Ministry granted him an exception, and the bitumen remained.”
‘Midnight in Chernobyl’ af Adam Higginbotham, s. 20
