It all began with a simple test. The operators working the night shift at the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl would simulate the conditions of a power failure. The key question was whether the water turbines would continue spinning long enough to keep the uranium reactor cool, before the emergency generator kicked in. It would all be over in a few minutes.Twenty-four hours later, Reactor No. 4 was an angry volcano of molten uranium.

Helicopter crews were trying to smother it with sandbags whilst a plume of radioactive smoke was billowing across Western Europe. The Kremlin was shrugging its shoulders, denying that anything was amiss. This was all bad enough. But the real problems were just beginning.As the Battle of Chernobyl wore on, the scientists on the ground came to a terrible realization- everything they had done so far had been a mistake. The temperature of the reactor was increasing, and if it got much hotter, the uranium would melt through the plant?s concrete foundation and keep going all the way down until it hit the water table, causing a second, exponentially larger explosion that would wipe out half of Europe.We escaped that fate-just barely-but the world was changed all the same. Chernobyl bankrupted the already teetering Soviet Union and revealed a state built on a pillar of lies.

Nuclear programs across the globe stopped dead in their tracks. We caught an early glimpse of what a World Without Us might look like.Almost forty years later, the cycle is beginning again, with renewed interest in nuclear programming and the quest to build a new generation of fail-proof reactors. Meanwhile, the giant concrete sarcophagus surrounding the remains of Chernobyl is beginning to crack. The uranium inside is every bit as radioactive as the day it exploded. To fix that problem once and for all, the world will need to come together to solve one of the greatest engineering challenges it has ever faced.In Chernobyl , Adam Higginbotham draws on original reporting and thorough archival research to tell the full story. This is the definitive account of the explosion that changed the world.