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Midnight in Chernobyl The Untold Story of the World Greatest Nuclear Disaster Adam Higginbotham 9781501134616 Books

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Midnight in Chernobyl The Untold Story of the World Greatest Nuclear Disaster Adam Higginbotham 9781501134616 Books

Author Adam Higginbotham has done a masterful job of blowing the lid off of the sarcophagus of obfuscation under which the Soviet Union attempted to bury the truths about what happened at Chernobyl in April of 1986. He dug deep into archives, personal papers, professional journals, and hundreds of hours of interviews to piece together the puzzle of the events that led up to the explosion that destroyed Reactor Number Four at Chernobyl.

The author offers, as well, background into the flaws in the design of the RBMK graphite-moderated boiler water reactor. He examines the corrupt and labyrinthine system of managing nuclear power in the USSR. While this is a superb work of journalism, it also holds the intrigue of a murder mystery. Who really was responsible? What really happened? Was it design error or operator error? The author makes this a very enlightening journey inside the minds of Soviet and Ukrainian leaders and scientists, as well as inside the broken lives of the workers who operated the plant and lived in nearby Pripyat.

Mr. Higginbotham makes a credible case for the fact that the Chernobyl disaster and its lingering aftershocks were the catalysts that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and Perestroika were not able to overcome the inertia of a Soviet machine that did not know how to tell the truth to its people or to the world at large. That lack of candor became as toxic for the Soviet state as the radioactive debris from Chernobyl became for those in the path of the fallout.

I had a very personal;interest in this story. In 1992, I was part of a UN group that toured the Chernobyl complex, the village of Pripyat, and several hospitals in Kiev that were treating hundreds of victims of chronic radiation poisoning. Many of them were suffering from leukemia, thyroid cancer, and a host of other diseases. When we arrived at Chernobyl, we were taken to a visitors' center where we were show a 1:6 scale model of the Chernobyl complex. The official guide proceeded to give this UN group a speech about the wonderful safety history of Soviet nuclear power. "Of course, there was this one small incident that the world tries to blow out of proportion," At that time, one of the remaining reactors was still functioning, ,and we were taken to the control room, mere yards from the notorious sarcophagus that had been built to bury the debris of the core of Reactor Number Four. The engineers operating the plant were smoking, and ashes from their cigarettes fell onto the dials of the instruments that told them the status of the reactor and the turbines. It was clear that not many safety lessons had been learned from the worst nuclear accident in history.

This is a story with many villains and some remarkable heroes. Add to the list of heroes Mr. Higginbotham, whose yeoman work in uncovering facts and truths about Chernobyl will help the world to make more informed choices about the future of nuclear energy. This is a book that should be read by anyone with an interest in energy, the history of the Soviet Union, and the forces that shape history.

Enjoy!


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Midnight in Chernobyl The Untold Story of the World Greatest Nuclear Disaster Adam Higginbotham 9781501134616 Books Reviews

A nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union what could possibly go wrong? Most people are aware that "Chernobyl" was the worst nuclear disaster that has ever happened, but few people know the detailed story, at least in part because many of the facts were suppressed in the Soviet Communist era and for a good time afterwards. But with the passage of time, and the determined investigation of the author, most or all of the story is now ready to be read.

Having studied physics in college and having lived in Europe when the disaster occurred, I found the story especially relevant, but it will be of interest to most readers, particularly those concerned about how humans can affect the whole planet and for years to come.

There is just enough "science" here for the casual reader to understand the basics of a nuclear reactor, and thus why the accident occurred. There is enough politics to understand what was going on in the USSR at the time. There is enough, actually a lot, of the human side of the story. All of this is woven together to make an excellent book.

Here are a few particular impressions I came away with
- In their quest to keep up and surpass the West, the Soviets used reactor technology and construction methods that ignored the safety features and factors that were always used by Western countries, allowing them to build reactors that were much bigger and cheaper. And ... MUCH more dangerous.
- It was common for the Soviet government to keep their citizens in the dark about danger and bad news. Saving face seemed to be the paramount objective of senior government officials, and drove a lot of their (bad) decisions.
- Fear of making a mistake loomed large for Soviet citizens in responsible positions, e.g. the first thoughts of several key people in this story are "I am going to be shot". It is hard for those of us who do not live in totalitarian states to imagine this.
- Despite how much Soviet citizens mistrusted their one-party government, most of them seemed at least resigned to how it worked, and a surprising number aspired to "Party" membership and supported how their one-party system worked. There seems to be very little dissent. (This surprising theme comes through in many other historical presentations, especially in descriptions of how Soviets fought in WW2.)
- Of course there is a "criminal" investigation that begins right away, because *someone* must be to blame for this enormous embarrassment. Predictably enough, no high-ranking officials have anything to fear, even the guy who designed the reactors that lacked the safety features that would have prevented the disaster (features that were later retrofitted to all Soviet reactors). The scapegoats ended up being mid- to low-level officials who were involved in the disaster, but most likely could not have done anything to prevent it.
- One character takes on the Homer Simpson role He's a good-natured guy who works in the reactor control room, and is the guy who pushes what turns out to be the fatal button that triggers the whole event.
- And one can not help but admire and feel sorry for the heroes, mostly first-responders, who charged in immediately after the explosion to do their jobs of putting out fires. Some of them were aware of the risk, some not, but many died of the invisible mega-doses of radiation that some of them absorbed in mere seconds.

Overall a great book that combines science, politics (Soviet), sociology, "crime", and human interest - woven together into a very entertaining and thought-provoking account of a major historical event whose effects linger to this day.
This is an incredible story! No one was guilty! It was the way things were done there and then! Still life goes on,, and many survivors had long and productive lives after the event!
This is a gripping and enthralling read a wild ride through a nuclear disaster and the desperate attempts of the men and women who tried to prevent it becoming something far worse. Higginbotham has a great turn of phrase, a grip on the material - but most of all, a sense that this a real story about real people. If you go into this seeing it as a story of nuclear physics and the failure of the Soviet Union, you’ll come out realizing that’s only part of the story. The men who fought the fires after the first explosion, the woman mayor who tried to save her town, the families who watched loved ones suffer from radiation sickness - this is about life and death. The story also tells us something about how politicians and officials struggled to manage - even deny - the truth, but the scale of the disaster escaped them. It’s a great read.
A riveting, thorough account of the Chernobyl disaster, including the background information and the subsequent attempts by the plant administration and the Soviet Union politburo to conceal the true expanse of the catastrophe. Would recommend wholeheartedly to any history aficionado.
Author Adam Higginbotham has done a masterful job of blowing the lid off of the sarcophagus of obfuscation under which the Soviet Union attempted to bury the truths about what happened at Chernobyl in April of 1986. He dug deep into archives, personal papers, professional journals, and hundreds of hours of interviews to piece together the puzzle of the events that led up to the explosion that destroyed Reactor Number Four at Chernobyl.

The author offers, as well, background into the flaws in the design of the RBMK graphite-moderated boiler water reactor. He examines the corrupt and labyrinthine system of managing nuclear power in the USSR. While this is a superb work of journalism, it also holds the intrigue of a murder mystery. Who really was responsible? What really happened? Was it design error or operator error? The author makes this a very enlightening journey inside the minds of Soviet and Ukrainian leaders and scientists, as well as inside the broken lives of the workers who operated the plant and lived in nearby Pripyat.

Mr. Higginbotham makes a credible case for the fact that the Chernobyl disaster and its lingering aftershocks were the catalysts that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Glasnost and Perestroika were not able to overcome the inertia of a Soviet machine that did not know how to tell the truth to its people or to the world at large. That lack of candor became as toxic for the Soviet state as the radioactive debris from Chernobyl became for those in the path of the fallout.

I had a very personal;interest in this story. In 1992, I was part of a UN group that toured the Chernobyl complex, the village of Pripyat, and several hospitals in Kiev that were treating hundreds of victims of chronic radiation poisoning. Many of them were suffering from leukemia, thyroid cancer, and a host of other diseases. When we arrived at Chernobyl, we were taken to a visitors' center where we were show a 16 scale model of the Chernobyl complex. The official guide proceeded to give this UN group a speech about the wonderful safety history of Soviet nuclear power. "Of course, there was this one small incident that the world tries to blow out of proportion," At that time, one of the remaining reactors was still functioning, ,and we were taken to the control room, mere yards from the notorious sarcophagus that had been built to bury the debris of the core of Reactor Number Four. The engineers operating the plant were smoking, and ashes from their cigarettes fell onto the dials of the instruments that told them the status of the reactor and the turbines. It was clear that not many safety lessons had been learned from the worst nuclear accident in history.

This is a story with many villains and some remarkable heroes. Add to the list of heroes Mr. Higginbotham, whose yeoman work in uncovering facts and truths about Chernobyl will help the world to make more informed choices about the future of nuclear energy. This is a book that should be read by anyone with an interest in energy, the history of the Soviet Union, and the forces that shape history.

Enjoy!