The definitive, dramatic untold story of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, based on original reporting and new archival research. The full story of the events that started that night in the control room of Reactor No.4 of the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant has never been told―until now. April 25, 1986 in Chernobyl was a turning point in world history. The disaster not only changed the world’s perception of nuclear power and the science that spawned it, but also our understanding of the planet’s delicate ecology. With the images of the abandoned homes and playgrounds beyond the barbed wire of the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, the rusting graveyards of contaminated trucks and helicopters, the farmland lashed with black rain, the event fixed for all time the notion of radiation as an invisible killer. Midnight in Chernobyl shows not only the final epic struggle of a dying empire, but also the story of individual heroism and desperate, ingenious technical improvisation joining forces against a new kind of enemy.