Snag Chernobyl: The History Of A Nuclear Catastrophe Authored By Serhii Plokhy Accessible In Publication

Chernobyl exploded, I was very relieved to be back home in New Zealand, and far away from Europe, where I had been living up until only two months previously.
With the new information now available, it is horrifying to see just how close Europe, as a whole, came to nuclear devastation, It is a testament to the extreme heroism of the Soviet Union firefighters, soldiers, miners and nuclear power scientists and workers that such a catastrophe was averted, But, at the same time, it was the political flaws in the hidebound, autocratic Soviet system that made the crisis more likely to occur in the first place, It is the political dimension that this book focuses on relating to both the causes, and the aftermath of Chernobyl, for the Soviet Union and the entire world,
A year later I was back in Europe London, and Chernobyl was not so much in the news, Then in OctoberI went to see the play “Sarcophagus” by Pravda science editor Vladimir Gubaryev, and learnt a lot more about the Chernobyl nuclear plant, its construction and the immediate aftermath.
Much of what was in the play is also covered in the book the rushed construction to meet deadlines, the inferior and defective quality of the construction materials, the effects of radioactivity on the local population, workers and people initially drafted into to fight the fire and explosion.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent opening up of access to information as well as the passing of time not to mention the restrictions imposed by a play compared to the relative freedom of prose, the book is able to go into much more detail.

The book makes a big thing about the secrecy and coverups surrounding the events at Chernobyl by the Party in Moscow, but the play “Sarcophagus” with its criticisms of Soviet industry and the response to Chernobyl published and performed in Russia as well as in the West with the consent of the Party was not mentioned.
The Soviet nuclear industry was a matter of national and ideological pride, and so its safety could not be called into question, and any problems should particularly not be broadcast to the West until denial was no longer an option.

Secrecy surrounding the nuclear industry is not confined to the Soviet Union, The Windscale reactor in Britain had numerous accidents the worst a major fire inwith the release of radioactivity across Europe, Noone was evacuated, and for many years the only admission of contamination was in milk produced nearby which was destroyed for only one month afterwards, As a teenager, I read a lot about the nuclear industry, and what I read in thes about Windscales accidents convinced me that nuclear power was safe, Windscales name was changed to Sellafield, most likely to avoid continued association with nuclear accidents, and is only now Junebeing decommissioned, Chernobyl was a great wakeup call to me and the rest of the world and Fukushima was a notsogentle reminder, The risks involved in using nuclear power can be minimised, with constant vigilance, continual updating of safety measures, high quality construction and adequate financing, and an open, fearfree working environment.
But, nuclear power will never be fully safe,
The book charts the entire history of the nuclear industry at Chernobyl and elsewhere in the USSR, the people involved, choices of reactor, decisions made that had later disastrous consequences, the costcutting, and most of all the ideology that made the abnegation of responsibility and scapegoating routine.
The actual explosion and fire at Chernobyl are dealt with in detail, as is are the attempts at containment, and clean up, with the evacuations of local inhabitants, The book then goes on to consider the political fallout from Chernobyl on the breakup of the Soviet Union, I started to skim through this section, but then paid it more attention, as it explained at least some of the ongoing poor relationship and distrust between Ukraine and Russia.

This is a very readable book, with a wealth of wellresearched information that gives a historical background to the crisis and important lessons for the future, These can be summed up in three quotes:
The causes of the Chernobyl meltdown are very much in evidence today, Authoritarian rulers pursuing enhanced or greatpower statusand eager to accelerate economic development and overcome energy and demographic crises, while paying lip service to ecological concernsare more in evidence now than they were in.

The most crucial lesson is the importance of counteracting the dangers posed by nuclear nationalism and isolationism and of ensuring close international cooperation between countries developing nuclear projects, This lesson is especially important today, when the forces of populism, nationalism, and antiglobalism are finding more adherents in a world that relies increasingly on nuclear technology for the production of energy.

While world attention is focused on the nonproliferation of nuclear arms, an equally great danger looms from the mismanagement of “atoms for peace” in the developing world,
I thought this was a fascinating history of Chernobyl its design and construction, theaccident

and subsequent efforts to remedy and conceal it, the spread of radiation, and so on including its role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.


In places this is a moving account for example how attempts to conceal what had happened led to evacuations and other safety measures being delayed, or the heroic actions of those trying to contain the nuclear inferno.
Although some did so understanding the danger, others had little knowledge and no choice,

Yes, I got lost a few times amongst the nuclear physics lessons and the hundreds of Russian names, but overall this was an unlikely page turner, A Chernobyl survivor and awardwinning historian "mercilessly chronicles the absurdities of the Soviet system" in this "vividly empathetic" account of the worst nuclear accident in history The Wall Street Journal.


On the morning of April,, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine.
Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill,

In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno, He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry, tracing the disaster to the authoritarian character of the Communist party rule, the regime's control over scientific information, and its emphasis on economic development over all else.


Today, the risk of another Chernobyl looms in the mismanagement of nuclear power in the developing world, A moving and definitive account, Chernobyl is also an urgent call to action,
A rigorously research but above all very moving account of the Chernobyl disaster

When onAprilan alarm kept going off in a Swedish power plant it was the first sign that something was seriously wrong.
All signs were pointing to Russia, but initially Russia flatly denied that something very bad had happened, After a few days, when more and more radioactivity was detected, Russia could not keep its secret anymore: there had been an incident at the nuclear power plant near Chernobyl, in the Ukraine.


Serhii Plokhys account is the first comprehensive history from the explosion to the closing of the plant in December, The first thing I noticed is that he despite all the nuclear science never loses sight of the human picture, or tragedy that occurred,

A human tragedy it ws.
I was haunted by the story of the plants director, who was the ultimate scapegoat, Although he did bore some responsibility, he was in effect used to distract the attention to the deeper causes of the accident: the fact that there were some serious design flaws in the type of nuclear reactor used in Chernobyl.


The real heroes of the story were the firemen, who were sent onto the roof of the reactor building, kicking off highly radioactive graphite along the way, Already after a few hours, they were showing the signs of acute radio active poisoning,

In the meantime, the Soviet authorities tried to keep the matter under the lid, After a long delay, they finally agreed to the evacuation of the people and did not even try to prevent the May parades in Kiev even though they knew there was a risk of radiation.


In the end, the seeds of the Soviet collapse were sown in Chernobyl, as the ecologic disaster was quickly turned into a debate about independence, The rest is history.

And Chernobyl It is estimated that a further,,will have died of radiation causes since, The area surrounding the reactor will not be safe for human habitation for at least another,years, I listened to this and in the beginning I was taking notes, but soon gave up on that, This book is so dense, imparting so much information, It was a mess up of epic proportions from beginning to end up, Substandard materials, shortages, money that was supposed to be used for maintenance of the plant, used instead for town amenities, Workers who had little clue what they were doing, pressure from party bosses to get the reactors operational, and then they don't even realize that the reactor had blown up.
People getting sick, wading into and touching radioactive materials, hesitancy and unwillingness to evacuate the town, Then the coverups, misinformation. My goodness, what a terrible, horrific incident this was, I thought the author did a great job assembling this information and glad this had a PDF file, So many times the audio does not, Interesting information but the writing wasn't the most engaging, There also was quite a bit of detailed Ukrainian history perhaps not surprising from an author who is an expert in Ukranian history that I didn't think was pertinent to the story given the title of the book.
Perhaps/but no more, If anyone has time, they should explore belgradewaterfront, com. Last week a friend here took us to the realty office which is located in a former stock market exchange: feel free to infer from there, As two visiting Americans we were given quite the pitch on how this eyesore of Belgrade was going to be replaced by The Future, Malls and luxury apartments, oh my! Such exclusivity, such luxury, Serbia was giving the land and Abu Dhabi was paying the tab, Sounds like an everyday gentrification but upon considering the per capita GDP one thinks appearances might be deceiving,

A few days later I saw this book on the shelves of a shop and bought it immediately, There was already an interest in Chernobyl, given the HBO series were recording but in light of what I was seeing before me, it did appear imperative,

Plokhy takes a comprehensive approach to the subject, exploring the history of settlement in the region, how fared as part of the Soviet experiment and the advent of nuclear power.


The narrative is harrowing and the courage of many is heartbreaking, The myriad responses from both within the USSR and around the world were disturbing, Theres money to be made and electricity to be generated, I dont believe we can count on good faith stewardship with those two incentives propelling the industry, That has given me a great deal to contemplate, Eine spannende und detaillierte Chronologie der Reaktorkatastrophe von Tschernobyl, Die Informationen über physikalische Grundlagen, Funktionsweise und Aufbau der sowjetischen Graphitreaktoren, sowie die politischen Strukturen des Machtapparats sind auch für Laien gut verständlich, Neben den unmittelbaren Auswirkungen der Katastrophe, wirft das Buch auch einen Blick auf deren geopolitische Folgen, die bis zum derzeitigen RusslandUkraineKonflikt reichen, Fazit: Ein Sachbuch das nichts zu wünschen übrig lässt, Insbesondere allen Zuschauern der HBOSerie "Chernobyl" empfohlen, die sich in die Materie vertiefen möchten, Чорнобиль став якщо не формуючим, то принаймні постійно присутнім досвідом покоління народжених в добу Перебудови і читати книжки про нього варто саме тому, що вони допомагають зрозуміти це покоління. Плохій виводить історію Чорнобиля на глобальний політичний рівень, показуючи, як питання атомної енергетики від всесоюзної технічної катастрофи стало проблемою українського страждання та національного самовизначення.
Але мені сподобалося найбільше інше. Книжка Плохія це історія Чорнобиля здебільшого, з точки зору високопосадовців та осіб, які були причетні до керування станцією. Це радше історія зверху, аніж знизу, але попри те цікава і близька нам. Автор показує болісний процес прийняття кожного рішення, здійснення кожної помилки, але при цьому автор максимально намагається зрозуміти головних героїв. Він показує директорів, пожежників та дослідників як звичайних людей, зі своїми сотками картоплі, дачами і дружинами. Кожен їхній вчинок зумовлений не зловмисництвом, а балансуванням між потребою щось зробити в умовах браку інформації та тиску зверху робити все швидко і негайно. Місце в ієрархії визначало дуже багато, як і вагання і побоювання старших колег, так і ставлення до підлеглих.
З одного боку Чорнобиль був про масовий і безкорисливий героїзм тисяч людей, з іншого про приховування інформації про загрози від умовного Заходу та своїх громадян. Але, знову ж таки, автор не таврує “погану партійну номенклатуру”, а пробує пояснити як суспільна ситуація формувала їхні рішення.

Дві події, які найбільше вразили:
травнева демонстрація найбільш жахливий момент, коли уже відомі загрози радіації і відома ситуація на Хрещатику, але людей, які ні про що не підозрюють, виводять на парад бо треба захистити честь СРСР і показати що ситуація під контролем.
багатотисячна демонстраціяроку проти замовчування проблем Чорнобиля навіть, якщо забути про її політичне значення, це мав бути незабутній досвід для учасників.

Після цієї книжки легко зненавидіти Горбачова, хоча його постать у колективній історичній памяті досить позитивна.
знайшла фактичну помилку наприклад про трьох людей, які у водолазних костюмах відкачували воду зпід реактора, щоб запобігти другому вибуху вони не загинули, а вижили. Але підказують, що в paperback це вже виправлено
безмежнй респект історику, який розібрався у всіх технічних деталях катастрофи та особливостях вимірювання радіації.