Equipment assembled included remote-controlled bulldozers and robot-carts that could detect radioactivity and carry hot debris. Valery Legasov said, in 1987: "But we learned that robots are not the great remedy for everything. Where there was very high radiation, the robot ceased to be a robot—the electronics quit working.
Only 10% of the debris cleared from the roof was performed by robots with the other 90% removed by approximately 5,000 men who absorbed, on average, an estimated 25 rem of radiation each (five times normal yearly standards).