Chernobyl 01

<p>At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl&rsquo;s fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated and inaccurate stories.</p> <p>This book, the result of five years of research, presents an accessible but comprehensive account of what really happened. From the desperate fight to prevent a burning reactor core from irradiating eastern Europe, to the self-sacrifice of the heroic men who entered fields of radiation so strong that machines wouldn&rsquo;t work, to the surprising truth about the legendary &lsquo;Chernobyl divers&rsquo;, all the way through to the USSR&rsquo;s final show-trial. The historical narrative is interwoven with a story of the author&rsquo;s own spontaneous journey to Ukraine&rsquo;s still-abandoned city of Pripyat and the wider Chernobyl Zone.</p> <p>Complete with over 45 pages of photographs of modern-day Pripyat and technical diagrams of the power station,<em>Chernobyl 01:23:40</em>&nbsp;is a fascinating new account of the world&rsquo;s worst nuclear disaster.</p>