Time 01:23:40 on April 26, 1986. Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency stop button of the fourth nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl plant. It was an act that led to the evacuation of a city, killed thousands of people, and irreparably wounded the Soviet Union.

This event sparked dozens of conflicting, exaggerated, and inaccurate stories. This book, the result of five years of research, is an accessible and fully comprehensible depiction of what exactly happened. From the desperate efforts of people to prevent a burning reactor core from contaminating all of Eastern Europe with radiation, to the self-sacrifice of the unsung heroes who entered radiation fields so intense that the machines could not function.

The narrative of historical events is enriched by the author's personal experience from his journey to the abandoned city of Pripyat as well as the broader Chernobyl area in modern-day Ukraine. Enhanced with recent photographs of the city of Pripyat and a detailed diagram of Reactor Unit 4 of the plant, this book is a captivating account of the worst nuclear disaster in history.