Nuclear Disaster

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

And so it begins.... In the United States, the Department of Defense and the NSA computer networks have been hacked. A nuclear-armed CIA drone has lost all flight control. North Korea...Iran...Russia...and soon the gates of Hell will open. Humanity's most terrifying nightmare has become reality. Bombs are detonated, missiles are launched, counterstrikes are ordered, and within minutes, untold thousands of megatons have left countless millions dead or dying. Devastation of biblical proportions has fallen over the land...and the USA has been hit the hardest.

Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents—Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima—Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.

To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias - communities of nuclear families living in highly subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia - they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant.

It was a warm night on April 26th, 1986. Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov, the Chernobyl Reactor 4 plant engineer, called for a safety test. The test was to figure out how to keep the reactor cool until the backup electrical generators could be turned on. Three similar tests had been conducted the year before, but they hadn't managed to produce any results. This test was going to be different.

At 01:23:40 on April 26th 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.

A harrowing account of Russia’s occupation of the Chernobyl and Zaporizhia nuclear power plants and the dangers of nuclear power colliding with warfare.

From the pioneers of Los Alamos who got up close and personal with the cores of atomic bombs, to the hapless engineers in Soviet fuel-processing plants who unwittingly mixed up a disaster in a bucket, and from the terrifying impact of a tsunami at Fukushima to the mystery of the recent Russian incident, Meltdown explores the past and future of this extraordinary and potentially lethal source of infinite power

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to knock the earth from its axis sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Over the following weeks, the world watched in horror as a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe: fail-safes failed, cooling systems shut down, nuclear rods melted.

On the morning of April 26, 1986, 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....

Uranium is best known for the destructive power of the atom bombs, which ushered in the nuclear era at the end of World War II, but given the effectiveness of nuclear power, nuclear power plants were constructed around the developed world during the second half of the 20th century. While nuclear power plants were previously not an option and thus opened the door to new, more efficient, and more affordable forms of energy for domestic consumption, the use of nuclear energy understandably unnerved people living during the Cold War and amidst ongoing nuclear detonations.

Leo Ferrel was the terror of the school system in Kooskia, Idaho. Leo was the product of a single parent who spent more time beating on her son than raising him. When Leo’s mother decides that she has an opportunity for a better life, she abandons her son at age 14. Leo is left with an old pickup truck and just enough money to survive while trying to find a better home than the old rusted trailer that was the only home he had ever known. Leo decides to make one of the caves on his property livable in order to escape the dilapidated trailer and try to build a better life. Along the way, ...

Billy Turner is forced to grow up at an early age after surviving a broken home. The uncertainty he experiences influences his tendencies towards being prepared from the age of nine. Forced into a situation where he lives by himself during the week while his father is away at work, Billy is smart and resourceful to avoid becoming entrapped in the foster care system. Together, he and his dad embark on a mission to become prepared for the bad times that both fear are coming. Along the way Billy meets Heather who shares his secrets and leads him to the Lord in her father’s church. Tragedy ...

One pulse… and civilization crumbles. A catastrophic EMP attack plunges the world into darkness, igniting a global nuclear war that wipes out 90% of humanity. With law and order collapsing, survivors must fight not only for food and shelter—but for their lives. Colonel Thomas Bradley, a brilliant electronic warfare expert, leads a desperate group of survivors deep into the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Inside the massive underground facility, they battle against dwindling resources, radioactive fallout, and relentless attacks from militant factions determined to take what ...

A single faulty sensor. A town blissfully unaware of the poison in the air. For Elena Markham, a brilliant and dedicated nuclear engineer, it’s the start of a thirty-hour nightmare. When her instruments detect a critical anomaly at the St. Croix Nuclear Facility, her superiors dismiss it as a minor glitch. With a major safety audit looming, they’re more concerned with appearances than with a potential catastrophe. As management actively works to bury her findings and silence her warnings, Elena finds herself in a desperate race against time. The reactor's core is unstable, and the ...

From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity's struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics, and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, Pearce finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created.

It was a day like any other. People setting out on the commute to work or taking the kids to school or chatting to their friends in the park. Normal. Routine. Nothing to mark it apart. By lunchtime, everything they had ever known, every aspect of their lives, would be changed forever - marked by the most catastrophic series of global disasters to strike the planet in over 6000 years. MANKIND STANDS AT THE GATES OF EXTINCTION The world is being ripped apart by a great geological cataclysm. Cities crumble and entire continents disappear beneath the sea as earthquakes and mega-tsunamis lay ...

★★★★★ "The most engaging post apocalyptic/dystopian thriller I've ever read!" ★★★★★ "Holy Cow!" No Power. No Telephone. No internet. No T.V. No Transport. Nothing. What will you do when the world as we know it stops? For Kate Wolfe, the answer is simple - whatever it takes to protect her family. For Bob Jackson and his militia, it's the day they've been planning for. The day they take control. When the two collide, as the city of Boise falls to ruin, nobody can predict how things will end. ★★★★★ "I put Murray in the same class as Brad Thor, James Rollins, David...

Two days after a megaquake and tsunami combine to wreak havoc on the Pacific Northwest, Clint and his daughter are together at last. Instead of retreating to safety, they're on a one-way mission into the heart of the disaster. Chaos on the streets, impassable routes, and the worst of human nature combine to thwart them at every turn. But Mika's mom is missing, and they won't stop until they find her.

Almost 24 hours to the minute since the tsunami hit Fukushima Daiichi, Unit 1 exploded. The building wrenched apart, sending shards of irradiated concrete and metal knifing through the air in all directions. The reactor’s massive heavy-duty gantry crane bent like a twig and collapsed onto the refueling floor control room, crushing everything that wasn’t expelled in the blast. Outside, chunks of debris rained down on the fire crew, injuring five and shredding the hoses they had just laid.