Nuclear Disaster in the Urals

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.