Chernobyl 01:23:40

The author worked on the TV series of the year, Chernobyl, produced by HBO.
A perfect combination between a historical, technical and political reconstruction, and a human story.

A fascinating new and comprehensive account of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Contains over 45 photographs.

Full English original version available – over 30,000 copies sold

At 01:23:40 on 26th April 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl’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. This book, the result of five years’ 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’t work, to the surprising truth about the legendary ‘Chernobyl divers’, all the way through to the USSR’s final show-trial. The historical narrative is interwoven with the story of the author’s own spontaneous journey to Ukraine’s still-abandoned city of Pripyat and the wider Chernobyl Zone. Complete with over 45 photographs of modern-day Pripyat and technical diagrams of the power station, Chernobyl 01:23:40 is an enthralling story of an event, described at the compelling pace of
a novel.