Nuclear Disaster in the Urals

By Zhores A. Medvedev

Book Overview

The story of the explosion and contamination was and still is suppressed in the Soviet Union and, the author contends, by the CIA and other Western intelligence organizations fearful of public... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394744454
• ISBN13: 9780394744452
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating story of ecological research

This book presents a very plausible explanation of events surrounding a documented explosion at a Soviet nuclear plant in the southern Ural Mountains during the winter of 1959-60.The author is an ecologist, many of whose university colleagues disappeared from the ecological literature for a period of about six years, then suddenly began to publish data on radiological damage to a 400-sq.-mi. area between Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals. A series of chapters looks at different parts of the ecosystem; one deals with large ungulates, one with field rodents, another with fish populations, etc. The author believes that the only explanation for the type of radiological contamination studied is a non-nuclear explosion of stored radioactive waste. Water leaching into the area where leaky barrels of waste was heated by the radioactive isotopes, causing a steam explosion which spread the waste material over a very large area. His theory is corroborated by residents of the area who later emigrated from the Soviet Union to the West and told their story.This book is a fascinating read, even for someone with limited background in the science of ecology.