Yes, I wondered about that too. It looks like it was coated with something, perhaps as a sacrificial layer which could be washed off afterwards in a decontamination process. The interview with the Canberra's pilot was interesting, he's now 68 and perfectly well, with healthy children and grandchildren.
By contrast, the consequences of nuclear mismanagment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ukraine/st...469597,00.html
"There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn't get into it - with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe. "
Scary.
Mark.