Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
by Adam Higginbotham
View on GoodreadsWhat blew apart Reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986? Higginbotham's answer is reactor design defects and operator errors inside a late Soviet system that ran on shortages, shoddy work, falsified reports and unrealistic deadlines. The same secrecy kept you from seeing the causes and consequences for decades.
Core ideas
- The director in the middle: Viktor Brukhanov, squeezed between Party demands and technical reality, cut corners to meet Moscow's expansion targets.
- Stagnation built it: Brezhnev-era shortages and reports falsified on the way up the chain set the conditions for the explosion.
- The aftermath: The delayed evacuation of Pripyat, radiation sickness and a show trial of scapegoats follow, at a total cost Kirkus cites as an estimated $128 billion.
Published2019
Pages538
ISBN9781501134616
ReadNov 2024
