The bus's wheels rolled over the asphalt, producing a dull grinding sound, while the engine's roar rang especially clear in the silent night.
The players found a watch on the unconscious bus driver and finally learned the exact time.
—1:44 a.m. According to Zhang Heng's calculations, the explosion should have occurred fifteen to twenty minutes earlier.
There was still a long time before dawn. In Pripyat, three kilometers from the nuclear power plant, most of the town's residents were still fast asleep, completely unaware that the blast wave had already hurled part of the reactor core material into the sky, forming a vast cloud of highly radioactive aerosol.
At first, the cloud only enveloped the nuclear power plant, but it soon continued to expand, spreading in every direction with the wind.
The first Pripyat residents to notice the explosion were probably a group of night fishing enthusiasts.
The nuclear power plant discharged cold water, warmed by the turbine preheater exchanger, into the nearby Pripyat River. Because the water was warm, it attracted schools of fish and made for an excellent fishing spot. It also happened to be spring, the spawning season, so fishing enthusiasts flocked there. Even at night, there were quite a few people.
At their closest, they were less than three hundred meters from Reactor No. 4. As the Mechanic drove the bus past them, the players saw some anglers looking up at the smoke rising from the reactor. A few began packing up out of concern, but more chose to remain where they were.
They seemed convinced that the fire would not spread this far. Especially now that several fire engines had arrived, giving the anglers great confidence that the blaze would soon be brought under control. Some even felt that witnessing brave firefighters extinguish the fire