Exactly 26 years ago, the so-called Goiani incident occurred - radiation contamination in the Brazilian city of the same name. On the occasion of this sad date, we decided to talk about it and four other little-known disasters of this kind.
Goiani Incident, 1987
On September 12, a pair of Brazilian thieves entered the territory of an abandoned hospital in the Brazilian city of Goiania with the aim of stealing what was lying badly. Among the bad items was a part from a decommissioned radiotherapy unit containing radioactive cesium chloride in the form of a blue powder that glows in the dark. It was this that the looters discovered, having picked out the part, which they then sold to the local landfill owner, Devara Ferreira. He was extremely interested in the unusual properties of the powder, as a result of which guests from the local slums often came to his house, wanting to see this wonderful material with their own eyes. Then the radiation spread as if it were some kind of virus - cesium chloride was transferred by local residents from clothing to clothing, with a handshake, and was given in bags as some kind of curiosity.
Of course, this did not happen without consequences for local residents - just two weeks later, the wife of the landfill owner brought a bag with a strange substance to the local hospital due to the fact that the health and well-being of the inhabitants of the Goiania slums had seriously deteriorated. The relatively quick notification of the authorities saved many lives - four people died from exposure to cesium chloride, and another 250 (out of more than a hundred thousand tested) received radiation doses of varying degrees. The landfill and seriously contaminated houses where the powder had been present were buried outside the city. This land will not be usable for another three hundred years.
Plane crash over Thule base, 1968
A US Air Force B-52 strategic bomber that crashed in January 1968 near the American military base of Thule, in the vastness of Greenland, carried as many as four thermonuclear bombs on board. All of them did not explode during the crash, but were either completely destroyed or significantly damaged, which led to the contamination of large areas of the island with radioactive substances.
Thanks to a unique operation to decontaminate the area, during which thousands of cubic meters of snow and ice were transported to nuclear repositories in the United States, contamination of ocean waters was avoided, but the consequences for both the nature of Greenland and for American relations with allies were still not the greatest pleasant. Especially when you consider that two years earlier, the disaster with another US Air Force nuclear bomber led to significant contamination of Spanish territories.
Crash of the Kosmos-954 satellite, 1978
Star Wars. At the end of January 1978, a Soviet military satellite powered by a nuclear power plant lost control and crashed into Canada, scattering radioactive debris over a large area. As a result of the disaster, more than 120 square kilometers of the northwestern territories of Canada in the Great Slave Lake region received varying, but far from the smallest, doses of radiation contamination, and human casualties were avoided only due to the sparse population of these places.
Moreover, as in the case of American strategic bombers, this was not the first such case - four years after the incident, a similar satellite “Cosmos-1402” could not be launched into the orbital disposal zone. After that, it burned up in the atmosphere at a relatively low altitude above Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean, dispersing almost half a hundredweight of radioactive uranium among the clouds, which then fell to the ground in the form of precipitation over several years.
Accident at the Tokaimura nuclear site, 1999
The strangest and simply incredible thing about this far from minor disaster (not Fukushima, but still) at a Japanese nuclear facility is the cause of what happened. Despite all safety standards, to speed up the production of industrial uranium dioxide, local workers mixed uranium oxide with nitric acid not in a tank specially designed for this (which, due to its design, makes it impossible for a spontaneous chain reaction to start), but simply in ordinary stainless steel buckets.
Of course, such connivance could not but make itself felt - and on September 30, due to a nuclear chain reaction that began in the uranium mixture, a significant release of radioactive substances occurred. The incident claimed the lives of two workers who were mixing uranium in buckets with their own hands, and almost seven hundred more people received significant doses of radiation.
Radioactive contamination in Kramatorsk, 1980-1989
An incident more reminiscent of an urban horror story. At the end of the seventies, in the Karan construction quarry in the Donetsk region, a tiny capsule containing radioactive substances, which was used in one of the measuring instruments, was simply lost, and, despite all efforts, it could not be found. They found her nine years later, walled up in a reinforced concrete wall of one of the residential buildings built in 1980 in the city of Kramatorsk. This happened after in the “cursed” apartment, into which the lost capsule continuously emitted radiation, first a family of three died, and then a child from the second family living in this house, whose father achieved a comprehensive investigation into what happened. The consequences of negligence - 4 dead children, two adults and 17 people recognized as disabled.
Radioactive contamination in Kramatorsk- the fact of radioactive exposure to cesium-137 of residents of one of the panel houses in Kramatorsk (Ukraine) in the period from 1980 to 1989.
In the late 1970s, an ampoule with a radioactive substance used in a measuring device (level gauge) of an enterprise that mined gravel and crushed stone was lost in the Karansky quarry in the Donetsk region. The search began, and management warned its many customers about the loss. High-quality crushed stone from this quarry was also used to build Olympic facilities in Moscow. Until the end of the search, supplies of crushed stone were stopped on Brezhnev's orders. A week later, the search officially ended in failure.
In 1980, panel house No. 7 on Gvardeytsev-Kantemirovtsev Street was put into operation in Kramatorsk. The lost ampoule measuring 8 by 4 mm, emitting 200 roentgens per hour, turned out to be walled up in one of the walls of this house.
Already in 1981, an 18-year-old girl died in one of the apartments, and a year later her 16-year-old brother, then their mother. Another family moved into the apartment, whose teenage son soon died. All the victims died of leukemia. Doctors attributed a similar diagnosis to poor heredity. The father of the deceased boy obtained a detailed investigation, which showed a high radiation background in the nursery, in the adjacent apartment behind the wall and in the apartment on the floor above.
The residents were evicted, after which the exact location of the radiation source was determined. Having cut out part of the wall, it was taken to the Kiev Institute of Nuclear Research, where the ampoule was removed. The owner of the ampoule was identified by the serial number.
After the ampoule was removed, the gamma radiation in house No. 7 disappeared, and the level of radioactivity became equal to the background level.
Consequences
As a result of radioactive exposure, 4 children and 2 adults died over 9 years. Another 17 people were recognized as disabled.
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A new house was built in the city of Kramatorsk (Ukraine). The house, as is customary, was occupied by tenants. Six months later, a resident in one of the apartments is diagnosed with leukemia. Not even a month has passed, his wife has the same diagnosis. The family went to treatment, and the apartment was either exchanged or exchanged. Another 5-6 months pass and bam - the second shift in this apartment in the family has cancer again! The SES arrives with a meter and is shocked.
The standard dosimeter exceeded 200 microroentgen/hour (this is 10 times higher than the norm). We took a device of higher power. Near the wall, at the level of a meter from the floor, the dosimeter needle froze at 200 rubles per hour (this is 1000 times higher than the norm). A single “acute” dose of more than 400 r/h is considered incompatible with life. They took out this stove, moved the house out, repaired it, and changed the numbering on the street so that in future they wouldn’t shy away from it like it was the plague. An ampoule of cesium-137 (8 by 4 mm in size) with a radiation power of 200 roentgens per hour was found in the stove, which caused the death of four children and two adults.
It turned out that crushed stone quarries use devices that monitor the level of crushed stone on the belt. And in these very devices, cesium-137 is used, which fell out, and the concrete solution got in with the stone. Back in the late 70s, they lost him, then they allegedly looked for him, but not for long. The investigation established that the search for the ampoule was conducted unsatisfactorily. According to rumors, high-quality crushed stone from the quarry, with which the ampoule arrived in Kramatorsk, was intended for the construction of Olympic structures in Moscow. And when the message about the lost ampoule with cesium reached Brezhnev, he forbade stopping construction until the end of the search: the Olympics had to take place at all costs. A week later, the search for the ampoule was stopped on orders from the center.
September 14, 1999 Russia, Grozny
Six people decided to steal radioactive materials from a chemical factory. They opened the protective container and stole several 12-centimeter metal rods (cobalt-60 radioactive sources with an activity of 27 thousand Ci each). One of the men who carried the springs by hand died within half an hour afterward. Two died from exposure later, three more received serious radiation damage. In fact, cobalt itself is completely harmless. If anything, you carry it in your pocket all the time; it is used in phone batteries. And many more in the form of all kinds of alloys and chemical compounds. Only cobalt isotopes are radioactive.
September 13, 1987 Brazil, Goias state, Goiania city
Major radiation incident involving the dispersion of radioactive material from a stolen radioactive source. Two scavengers found a radiotherapy unit in an abandoned medical clinic, from which they removed a steel container with radioactive powder cesium-137 with an activity of 1375 Ci and brought it home. On the same day, both of their health conditions worsened and nausea and vomiting began. Five days later, the radioactive source was sold to a junk dealer. who at night noticed a blue glow emanating from the container. Over the next three days, he invited relatives home. to entertain them with an unusual spectacle. Then the container was opened, and the owner began to distribute highly radioactive cesium chloride powder as gifts. People applied it to their skin, trying to surprise their acquaintances at parties: they placed parts of the destroyed container on tables during meals. By September 28, when everyone who had come into contact with the powder developed serious health problems, the ragpicker’s wife took the remains of the source on a regular bus to the nearest hospital.
On September 29, large-scale measures to respond to the radiation accident began in the city. At the Goiania stadium, 112 thousand city residents were examined. 249 people exposed to radiation were identified, 129 of them received external and internal lesions, 14 showed varying degrees of bone marrow suppression, and eight had clinical signs of acute radiation syndrome. 19 suffered local radiation burns. Four people with a total radiation dose of 450 to 600 rem died (among them one child). The fifth died a few years later. Significant radioactive contamination was discovered in 85 houses in Goiania, and 7 houses were completely destroyed. Radiation levels in the most contaminated areas reached 100–200 R/h. Over the course of a month and a half, 350 cubic meters of radioactively contaminated soil were collected and buried. 10 million banknotes were checked in Goiânia banks - 68 of them were found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium. Residents of Goiânia were subjected to specific discrimination for many months - they were denied boarding on buses, trains and planes, and were not accommodated in hotels in other regions of the country. More than 8 thousand city residents received official certificates stating that they were not contaminated with radioactive materials.
February 20, 1999 Peru, Yanango
A welder at a local hydroelectric power plant picked up an iridium-192 radioactive source lost by an industrial radiography operator and put it in his trouser pocket. Six hours later, the worker began to experience pain in the back of his right thigh and went home with the source, resulting in several members of his family being exposed to radiation. The radiologist operator, having discovered the loss of iridium-192, hurried to the welder and seized the source from him. The victim received a total radiation dose of 150 rem, as well as a local one - about 10 thousand rads on the buttocks, as a result of which his leg was amputated
August 15, 1975 Italy, Lombardy, Brescia
The operator of a food irradiation plant based on a cobalt-60 source, due to the accidental absence of a radiation protection system at the conveyor entrance, received a whole-body dose of 1200 rem and died 13 days later.
1984, USA
A scrap metal warehouse received a decommissioned medical radiotherapy unit containing approximately 6 thousand cobalt 60 granules, 1 mm in size, with a total activity of more than 400 Ci. The container with the source was deliberately destroyed, and radioactive granules were scattered throughout the warehouse. Then, along with scrap metal, they went to a steel mill, where they were melted down. The resulting metal was used to make metal structures for tables that were sold in the city. Some of them were sent to the USA. Radioactive impurities in the metal were discovered only on January 16, 1984, when the ill-fated tables arrived at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Automatic radiation sensors detected their increased radioactivity. In just a few weeks, 931 tons of radioactive metal were discovered in the United States. About 2,500 radioactively contaminated tables were found in 40 US states. Most of them were removed from warehouses. Some even ended up in restaurants. In February 1985, Mexican authorities reported that four people in their country received doses ranging from 100 to 450 rem from contact with radioactive metal products. In March 1985, the United States conducted airborne radiation surveys in Mexico and found about 20 radioactively planted areas of the area. In the city of Sinaloa, 109 houses built using contaminated metal were destroyed. As a result, in Mexico, one worker died of bone cancer, and four received various diseases associated with radiation damage. A total of ten people were overexposed
November 25, 2003 Russia, Murmansk
One of the most scandalous trials of recent times, which the press called the “dirty bomb sale case,” ended with a guilty verdict. The deputy director of FPUP Atomflot was found guilty and sentenced, who two months earlier tried to sell a capsule containing approximately 1 kilogram of a substance containing uranium-235, uranium-238 and radium-226. According to the conclusions of experts, the distribution of this substance in places where people are crowded , its contamination of soil or water at collective water intake points could cause enormous damage to the health of the population. In fact, it was a ready-to-use “dirty” radiation bomb. Experts especially noted that the seized material could well have been used for acts of terror
February 19, 1996 Russia, Moscow
In one of the Moscow banks they found a bill that emitted 31 mR/h. In 1994–1996 In Russia, 22 cases of detection of radioactively contaminated money were recorded. There were banknotes with a radiation dose rate of up to 650 mR/h. The most “dirty” one with a radiation level of 2.6 R/h was found in the city of Elektrostal.
March 27, 2009 China
Chinese authorities have begun a search for the missing device, the component of which is radioactive cesium-137, AFP reports, citing Chinese newspapers. The device was used for precise measurements at a cement factory in Shaanxi Province. On Monday, March 23, when workers began to dismantle the plant, it turned out that a device with a radioactive component was missing. The main part of the device was a lead ball with cesium inside. Authorities fear the ball may be among 265 tons of scrap metal that has already been sold and melted down. Read the first story about Kramatorsk.
March 6, 2000 Egypt
A sixty-year-old farmer discovered on his plot a strange metal cylinder about 6 cm long (as it later turned out, a capsule with iridium-192). The man brought the find home and began polishing it with his 9-year-old son. Both received radiation burns and went to the hospital, but the doctors could not help: father and son received lethal doses of radiation and died a month later. The wife and the other four children were hospitalized with a diagnosis of acute radiation sickness, and more than 400 friends and relatives of the victims also underwent medical examination.
January 24, 2000 Samut Prakan Province, Thailand
A container with radioactive “filling” (cobalt-60) fell into the hands of a local resident (he later claimed that he bought the radiation source as ordinary scrap metal). It was not possible to disassemble the strange unit on our own and, in despair, the Thai sold it to a junk dealer. On the same day (February 1), the container was opened. As a result of the emergency, three people died, and seven more suffered acute radiation sickness. The dangerous container was only seized on February 20, when local authorities learned about the incident.
March 30, 1998 Algeciras, Spain
One of the largest emergencies in Spain: a discarded radioactive source along with scrap metal was accidentally melted in the furnace of a large enterprise. There was a powerful radioactive release into the environment, and the entire territory of the plant was contaminated. The cost of cleanup and restoration of the ecosystem amounted to more than 6,000,000 euros.
2001 Samara region, Russia
A clear example of criminal negligence. Three radiologists were testing the pipeline using a powerful radiation source (iridium-192) and forgot to put it in a protective container after finishing the work (as required by the instructions). In addition, they did not check the background radiation because they did not change the batteries in the dosimeter in time. The next day, all three developed symptoms of acute radiation sickness (nausea, vomiting), but they mistook the illness for ordinary poisoning. The fact that the radioactive source was outside the container was discovered a week later (!) by one of the radiologists. Without thinking about the consequences, he returned the capsule to its protective container with his bare hands and received severe radiation burns. No one informed management about the emergency; everything came to light during a routine medical examination. Doctors found out that each of the participants in the emergency received a dose of 100-250 R (enough to cause acute radiation sickness of 1-2 degrees).
2008 Ussuriysk, Russia
A metal capsule no more than a centimeter long emitted mortal danger. According to preliminary data, this is an industrial device made using cesium-137. 60-year-old Alexander Kuryshev could not believe that his garage posed a huge threat to others. Then I remembered that 20 years ago I picked up a shiny cylindrical spare part on the territory of an abandoned military unit. “Then I thought: everything will do on the farm.” He put the piece of iron in his pocket, and then threw it into the garage and forgot about it. My father was operated on. They gave me a disability,” the son said. “The doctors immediately realized that the cause of the ulcers was a radiation burn. But the source could not be found then.
1996 Ukraine.
In the Transcarpathian region, while passing through border control, a car was detained, the gamma radiation near which was 1500 μR/hour. The Zhiguli had to be torn apart in search of the radiation source. The cache was found in the fuel tank. A factory-made, thick-walled lead container was skillfully “welded” into it, containing only a few grams of cesium-137. At the same time, the container itself weighed about 50 kg. Three residents of Cherkasy and a Russian citizen were detained, who had once already served a two-year prison sentence in Hungary for smuggling radioactive substances - then he tried to smuggle a container with uranium-238. They transported the cesium from Russia as a sample for prospective buyers. After investigating a criminal case under Art. 228 part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine they were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment from 5 to 2.5 years.
RTGs
An RTG is an isotope generator, like a nuclear battery, that produces some electricity. It is usually used to power beacons and automatic crap in space. The size of a barrel. During the Soviet era, more than a thousand RTGs were manufactured; currently there are more than 700 of them left in Russia. The service life of RTGs can be 10-30 years, most of them have expired.
On November 12, 2003, the Hydrographic Service of the Northern Fleet, during a routine inspection of navigation aids, discovered a completely disassembled RTG of the Beta-M type in the Olenya Bay of the Kola Bay (on the northern shore opposite the entrance to the Ekaterininskaya Harbor), near the city of Polyarny. The RTG was completely destroyed, and all its parts, including the depleted uranium protection, were stolen by unknown thieves. A radioisotope heat source - a capsule with strontium - was discovered in water off the coast at a depth of 1.5 - 3 meters.
March 12, 2003. Russia, Leningrad region, Cape Pikhlisaar
On the shores of the Baltic Sea, an RTG that provided power to the lighthouse was looted. The non-ferrous metal hunters who destroyed the generator took away about 500 kilograms of stainless steel, aluminum and lead, and dropped the radioactive source of strontium-90 on the ice 200 meters from the lighthouse. A hot capsule with strontium melted the ice coating and sank to the bottom of the sea. At the same time, the dose rate of gamma radiation was more than 30 R/h. It must be assumed that the kidnappers received lethal doses of radiation (Belluna, 2003; Rylov, 2003).
2004, Norilsk, Russia
Three RTGs were discovered on the territory of military unit 40919. According to the unit commander, these RTGs remained from another military unit previously stationed at this location. According to the Krasnoyarsk inspection department of Gosatomnadzor, the dose rate at a distance of about 1 m from the RTG body was 155 times higher than the natural background. Instead of solving this problem within the Ministry of Defense, the military unit in which the RTGs were discovered sent a letter to Kvant LLC in Krasnoyarsk, which installs and commissions radiation equipment, with a request to take the RTGs to their burial site.
2005, Norilsk, Russia
Due to a lack of funds, at the end of 2005, when the branch of military unit 96211 was withdrawn from its occupied territory 60 km south of Norilsk, the RTGs were left unguarded. The theft was discovered at the end of March, but no official statements were made about this.
It’s interesting that the amount of illegal radioactive material on the country’s domestic market almost exceeds the amount of licensed goods, and what prevents terrorists from throwing, for example, radioactive toilet paper or poisonous toothpaste onto the market is unclear.
(Ukrainian SSR, USSR) in the period from 1980 to 1989.
At the end of the 1970s, in the Karansky quarry of the Donetsk region, an ampoule with a radioactive substance was lost, which was used in a measuring device (level gauge) of an enterprise that mined gravel and crushed stone. The search began, and management warned its many customers about the loss. High-quality crushed stone from this quarry was also used to build Olympic facilities in Moscow. After this became known, at the direction of L.I. Brezhnev, supplies of crushed stone from the Karan Gorge were stopped.
Maria Priymachenko street, 7
In 1980, panel house No. 27 (now No. 7) on Gvardeytsev Kantemirovtsev Street (now Maria Priymachenko Street) was put into operation in Kramatorsk. The lost ampoule measuring 8 by 4 mm, emitting approximately 200 roentgens per hour (the level on the surface of the ampoule), turned out to be walled up in one of the walls of this house.
Already in the summer of 1981, an 18-year-old girl died in one of the apartments, and a year later, her 16-year-old brother, then their mother. Another family moved into the apartment, whose teenage son soon died. All victims died of leukemia. Doctors attributed a similar diagnosis to poor heredity. The father of the deceased boy obtained a detailed investigation, which showed a high radiation background in the nursery, in the adjacent apartment behind the wall and in the apartment on the floor above.
All residents were evicted, after which the exact location of the radiation source was determined. Having cut out part of the wall, it was taken to, where the ampoule was removed. The owner of the ampoule was identified by the serial number.
After the ampoule was removed, the gamma radiation in house No. 7 disappeared, and the level of radioactivity became equal to the background level.
Consequences
As a result of radioactive exposure, 4 children and 2 adults died over 9 years. Another 17 people were recognized as disabled.
Radioactive contamination in Kramatorsk- the fact of radioactive irradiation with cesium-137 of residents of one of the panel houses in Kramatorsk (Ukrainian SSR) in the period from 1980 to 1989.
At the end of the 1970s, in the Karansky quarry of the Donetsk region, an ampoule with a radioactive substance was lost, which was used in a measuring device (level gauge) of an enterprise that mined gravel and crushed stone. The search began, and management warned its many customers about the loss. High-quality crushed stone from this quarry was also used to build Olympic facilities in Moscow. Until the end of the search, supplies of crushed stone were stopped on Brezhnev's orders. A week later, the search officially ended in failure.
In 1980, panel house No. 7 on Gvardeytsev-Kantemirovtsev Street was put into operation in Kramatorsk. The lost ampoule measuring 8 by 4 mm, emitting 200 roentgens per hour, turned out to be walled up in one of the walls of this house.
Already in 1981, an 18-year-old girl died in one of the apartments, and a year later, her 16-year-old brother, then their mother. Another family moved into the apartment, whose teenage son soon died. All victims died of leukemia. Doctors attributed a similar diagnosis to poor heredity. The father of the deceased boy obtained a detailed investigation, which showed a high radiation background in the nursery, in the adjacent apartment behind the wall and in the apartment on the floor above.
The residents were evicted, after which the exact location of the radiation source was determined. Having cut out part of the wall, it was taken to, where the ampoule was removed. The owner of the ampoule was identified by the serial number.
After the ampoule was removed, the gamma radiation in house No. 7 disappeared, and the level of radioactivity became equal to the background level.
Consequences
As a result of radioactive exposure, 4 children and 2 adults died over 9 years. Another 17 people were recognized as disabled.
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An excerpt characterizing radioactive contamination in Kramatorsk
On December 31, on New Year's Eve 1810, le reveillon [night supper], there was a ball at Catherine's nobleman's house. The diplomatic corps and the sovereign were supposed to be at the ball.On the Promenade des Anglais, the famous house of a nobleman glowed with countless lights. At the illuminated entrance with a red cloth stood the police, and not only gendarmes, but the police chief at the entrance and dozens of police officers. The carriages drove off, and new ones drove up with red footmen and footmen with feathered hats. Men in uniforms, stars and ribbons came out of the carriages; ladies in satin and ermine carefully stepped down the noisily laid down steps, and hurriedly and silently walked along the cloth of the entrance.
Almost every time a new carriage arrived, there was a murmur in the crowd and hats were taken off.
“Sovereign?... No, minister... prince... envoy... Don’t you see the feathers?...” said from the crowd. One of the crowd, better dressed than the others, seemed to know everyone, and called by name the most noble nobles of that time.
Already one third of the guests had arrived at this ball, and the Rostovs, who were supposed to be at this ball, were still hastily preparing to dress.
There was a lot of talk and preparation for this ball in the Rostov family, a lot of fears that the invitation would not be received, the dress would not be ready, and everything would not work out as needed.
Along with the Rostovs, Marya Ignatievna Peronskaya, a friend and relative of the countess, a thin and yellow maid of honor of the old court, leading the provincial Rostovs in the highest St. Petersburg society, went to the ball.
At 10 o'clock in the evening the Rostovs were supposed to pick up the maid of honor at the Tauride Garden; and yet it was already five minutes to ten, and the young ladies were not yet dressed.
Natasha was going to the first big ball in her life. That day she got up at 8 o'clock in the morning and was in feverish anxiety and activity all day. All her strength, from the very morning, was aimed at ensuring that they all: she, mother, Sonya were dressed in the best possible way. Sonya and the Countess trusted her completely. The countess was supposed to be wearing a masaka velvet dress, the two of them were wearing white smoky dresses on pink, silk covers with roses in the bodice. The hair had to be combed a la grecque [in Greek].
Everything essential had already been done: the legs, arms, neck, ears were already especially carefully, like a ballroom, washed, perfumed and powdered; they were already wearing silk, fishnet stockings and white satin shoes with bows; the hairstyles were almost finished. Sonya finished dressing, and so did the Countess; but Natasha, who was working for everyone, fell behind. She was still sitting in front of the mirror with a peignoir draped over her slender shoulders. Sonya, already dressed, stood in the middle of the room and, pressing painfully with her small finger, pinned the last ribbon that squealed under the pin.