A book hasn’t blown my mind this explosively in a long time. (Sorry!—that joke was in extremely bad taste. . . . But every joke has a truth behind it—dare I say an atom of truth, at its core?) (Sorry, again!) Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster, by Adam Higginbotham, is insightful, instructive, and important in a way that few books are. Today, I will answer your burning (aaargh, I can’t help it!) questions: What caused the explosion at the Chernobyl power plant? Did the Chernobyl nuclear accident, in a way, lead to the independence of Ukraine? Is Chernobyl still radioactive?

Midnight in Chernobyl, Ukraine, & Is Chernobyl Still Radioactive? About the Book

Higginbotham deserves a medal. This book is a tour de force. I cannot conceive spending years upon years traveling to the most radioactive site on earth, conducting interviews with traumatized survivors and family members of the worst nuclear accident in history, finding ways to gain access to information never before available to the public, compiling vast amounts of facts while sifting through lies and coverups, educating oneself on one of the most complex and little understood topics in all of science, organizing everything into a coherent story, and at the end of it all, writing a can’t-put-downable book.

Indeed, Higginbotham did win awards. Midnight in Chernobyl won a 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and The New York Times named it one of the 10 best books of 2019.

The title, Midnight in Chernobyl, is just about right, because the explosion occurred just after midnight. More precisely, it occurred at 1:24am on Saturday, April 26, 1986. But actually, the title is better than “just about right”—it’s perfect, because it was certain actions taken by certain nuclear power plant personnel in the hours before the accident (i.e., around midnight) that precipitated the disaster. And midnight, of course, is a good metaphor for a low point in history.

That was the official story, anyway—that certain actions taken by certain Chernobyl nuclear power plant personnel precipitated the disaster. The full story that Higginbotham uncovers is, however, much more nuanced. And that nuanced story has terrifying repercussions for all of us citizens of the world today.

Midnight in Chernobyl, Ukraine, & Is Chernobyl Still Radioactive? What Caused the Explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant?

When a manmade disaster occurs, there are often two causes, on two different scales. The more obvious scale is the immediate one, involving the people on the ground. Somebody pushed the wrong series of buttons, and the nuclear reactor exploded. That, as far as it goes, is true. Those people are the easiest targets for casting blame, and the Soviet Union came down hard on the plant operators who were in the control room at the time, as well as the plant managers. (Some of these men did not survive long enough to be held accountable.)

The less obvious scale is the broader one, involving the people who designed the nuclear reactors, the people in charge of insuring the safety of the nuclear reactors, and the overall structure of the society. Somebody approved the building and operation of unsafely designed nuclear power plants. Somebody—lots of people, often because they had little choice—upheld a culture of information suppression and loyalty to the Party above all else. These things are also true, but more difficult to pin down. Those involved in the high-level decision making leading up to the Chernobyl disaster were, by and large, not held accountable.

The Soviet Union, or USSR, was a socialist state controlled by the Communist Party. In order to maintain complete control over the country, the Party was the ultimate decision maker. Every governmental authority had to comply with the Party’s wishes, or else risk losing their job, or worse. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant director, Viktor Brukhanov, was caught between a rock and a hard place. Here’s how Higginbotham describes his situation before the disaster occurred:

“Like all successful Soviet managers, . . . Brukhanov had learned how to be expedient and bend limited resources to meet an endless list of unrealistic goals. He had to cut corners, cook the books, and fudge regulations.”

If the Party said jump, he had to jump, even if that meant disregarding safety regulations. And the Party wanted to make the nation as efficient as possible, which meant generating power on a massive scale, on a short timeline. For the good of the country.

I won’t attempt to describe the nuclear physics of it all—I’ll let you read the book yourself for that—but here’s my list of some of the causes of the Chernobyl explosion. Note that there are more causes than I list here. I list them roughly from most immediate to most broad:

• The man sitting at the control desk pressed the wrong series of buttons.
• He was only 25 years old, and this was his first time doing the task he had been assigned to do.
• His superiors seem to have had an argument about whether they should follow the regulations in a book. It seems that the one with the higher official authority, and a more argumentative and stubborn demeanor, prevailed. He wished to disregard the regulations.
• The 25-year-old initially refused to follow orders. But then he changed his mind and obeyed.
• The 25-year-old made a mistake while attempting to do what he was told to do.
• The nuclear reactor had several design flaws. One was that it had a positive void coefficient. This means that if something goes awry, the atoms tend to accelerate into a runaway chain reaction. A runaway chain reaction is what causes a nuclear bomb. In contrast, nuclear reactors in the United States have a negative void coefficient: if something goes awry, the atoms tend to settle down.
• Another flaw is that the reactor was extremely large. A larger nuclear reactor is harder to control than a smaller one. Incidentally, it also makes a larger explosion.
• Another flaw is that the reactor’s emergency system was designed to move slowly. This was supposed to keep the Soviet power grid from being unduly disrupted. The safety of the nuclear power plant was seen as a secondary consideration, since a catastrophe was thought to be so unlikely as to be unworthy of concern.
• Scientists in the Soviet Union knew about the design flaws of the reactors. But because of poor enforcement of safety regulations, poor information exchange, and a culture of propaganda, secrecy, and loyalty to the Party, these flaws remained in place.

Midnight in Chernobyl, Ukraine, & Is Chernobyl Still Radioactive? Did the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, in a Way, Lead to the Independence of Ukraine?

Yes, in a way. The Chernobyl explosion resulted in a radioactive cloud that floated over Europe. Scientists in European countries noticed this, and the Soviet Union was unable to keep the incident a secret. The USSR had experienced many accidents, including nuclear accidents, over the years, but they were able to suppress information about these events from spreading beyond the people at the site and Moscow officials. They were able to keep up the appearance of a grand and efficient world power, both within and beyond their borders.

But the massive explosion in the remote forest near Chernobyl, Ukraine, gained worldwide attention. This changed the global balance of power and, in a way, led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and then, two years later, the independence of Soviet satellites, including Ukraine.

Midnight in Chernobyl, Ukraine, & Is Chernobyl Still Radioactive? Is Chernobyl Still Dangerous? How Long Until Chernobyl Is Safe for Human Habitation?

One of the many terrifying facts I learned from Midnight in Chernobyl is that, yes indeed, the site of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant is still radioactive, and will be for a very, very long time. An enormous mass of radioactive material remains hot. Over the years, multiple barriers have been constructed over, around, and under the site, at a terribly high cost of human life and health and astronomical expense.

I was alarmed to read the following sentence in Higganbotham’s book:

“If [the structure built in 2016] worked as intended, the design would seal up the ruins of Unit Four in complete safety for another hundred years.”

Wait—what?! I had been under the naive impression that all the radioactivity would, like, die away or something long before that. But no. Apparently, every hundred years, humanity needs to attend to this problem. For those who have watched the TV series Lost: I am reminded of the dude in the bunker, doomed to push a button every 108 minutes to avert catastrophe. But for us in real life, it’s every 100 years.

The fields, forests, and former communities around the site are still too contaminated for human habitation, despite major cleanup efforts, and it has been 40 years. Higganbotham didn’t venture to guess how long it might be before people can live there safely again. It’s probably safe to visit for very short periods—but don’t take my word on this, and don’t quote me on that. If you visit, be sure to wear protective clothing, and be careful where you go; some areas are more contaminated than others.

Furthermore, as I’m sure you’ve heard, a war is raging in this region right now. In February 2025, a Russian drone struck the protective structure covering the nuclear mass, creating a hole. (I guess the structure didn’t even make it 10 years, let alone 100.) So visiting the site of the Chernobyl disaster seems like an especially bad idea this year. Maybe try Paris instead.

Currently, a forest is growing in the exclusion zone (the contaminated area surrounding the former nuclear power plant). Animals live there. It’s a strange place, in that it has become a natural sanctuary from human intervention, but not radioactive intervention. (From the perspective of the creatures, I don’t know which is worse.)

Midnight in Chernobyl, Ukraine, & Is Chernobyl Still Radioactive? Takeaways From the Book

Wow. There’s a lot here to take away. But my biggest takeaway? I am dismayed and alarmed that the United States is moving to make our country more like Russia, which, despite the fall of communism, maintains a culture of loyalty to a dictator. For the sake of Americans’ health, we need to ensure that safety regulations are given higher precedence than loyalty to a supreme leader. In the U.S., we’re currently moving toward poorer enforcement of safety regulations, poorer information exchange, and a culture of propaganda, secrecy, and loyalty. And yet these were the precise broad-level causes of the Chernobyl disaster.

If you have enough power, you can force people to behave a certain way. But you can’t force atoms to disobey the laws of physics. Thinking you can is folly.

Forcing people to disregard science in favor of fealty to a regime is the best way to ruin a country’s ability to thrive. Everything in our infrastructure, economy, social systems, and protection of natural resources currently rests upon the knowledge that scientists have painstakingly gathered over centuries. If scientists can’t share what they know, and if leaders in society don’t value scientists’ knowledge, everything will be in danger of collapsing around us.

Or should I say, exploding around us?

Sorry, not sorry.

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