Paying For Disaster

By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK

TITLE: ABLAZE

AUTHOR: PIERS PAUL READ

PUBLISHER: RANDOM HOUSE; 362 PAGES; $25

THE BOTTOM LINE: The tale of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl is told with uncommon depth and vividness.

The basic story of what happened on April 26, 1986, at reactor 4 of the nuclear power station near Chernobyl, in the Soviet Ukraine, is well known by now: an explosion and fire; the death of 31 people from acute radiation exposure and dozens more from diseases plausibly related to milder exposure; the likelihood of a surge in cancers over the next few decades; the poisoning of crops and livestock. The accident and its aftermath, coming less than a decade after the near meltdown at Three Mile Island, also poisoned the world's attitude toward nuclear power.

If Piers Paul Read had simply rehashed the same story, Ablaze would have been unexceptional. Instead he has probed deeply into the history of Soviet nuclear power and into the personal stories of people who operated within a corrupt political system to try to make a dangerous, haphazardly designed technology work. Then, just as he did in the 1975 bestseller Alive, he takes us through the accident, minute by minute, describing the deliberate rule bending and honest mistakes that led to the explosion, the terrible bravery of technicians and fire fighters who tried to limit the damage, and the way the survivors coped with their shattered lives.

The result is a book that is part thorough history, part techno-political thriller. Thanks to Read's exhaustive research and clear, vivid writing, it is evident that the disaster, or one like it, should have been predictable. Indeed, the Soviet nuclear industry had already had a long history of accidents. Because those were considered state secrets, though, most people -- including many in the industry -- had never heard of them. Read uncovers the startling fact that some critical aspects of the Chernobyl reactor's behavior that were known to its designers were never passed along to the operators. Perversely, the operators and their bosses were tried and jailed for the accident, while political higher-ups mostly avoided punishment.

Ultimately, the Soviet system paid for its sins. Only a few months before % the disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev had unveiled his new policy of glasnost, or openness. His idea was simply to expose the corruption of old-line communists and revitalize the party; the fear and anger triggered by Chernobyl, though, wedged that small crack of openness into a rift that eventually destroyed Gorbachev's power and the country itself.