Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A well-researched, documented, and written account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's reactor #4 meltdown. Higginbotham has done an excellent job interviewing all the main characters--still living 20 years later--who were there as the meltdown happened and/or were involved in the cover-up & clean-up. A damning look at the sloppiness, arrogance/hubris, mistakes, ignorance, and downright criminal actions of Soviet officials right up to the highest offices in the empire...a crumbling "empire" that was helped out of existence due to the long-lingering effects of Chernobyl's meltdown and its unbelievable associated costs. All the shining promises of nuclear were set back years & years by the events surrounding the bad design flaws and operator failures--and irreversible negative effects--of the meltdown at Chernobyl's reactor #4. Borrowed from the library.


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