This is an account of the events leading up to the worst nuclear disaster in history. It also examines the subsequent cover-up at which both politicians and technicians connived. The author recounts the panic and paralysis which overwhelmed the men and administrative bodies that were responsible for the plant. He goes on to describe the difficulties he encountered when trying to investigate the disaster, and the needless genetic damage that the refusal to own up to the scale of the disaster inflicted.

Foreword by: Andrei D. Sakharov