Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster

by Adam Higginbotham

From the beginning, Dyatlov contended that the Chernobyl operators bore no blame for what had happened to Reactor Number Four and addressed in detail every one of the charges brought against him. He said responsibility for the accident rested with those who had failed to warn the plant staff that they were operating a potentially explosive reactor and that he personally had given no instructions that violated any regulations. Despite being contradicted by several witnesses, Dyatlov also insisted that he had not been present in the control room of Unit Four at the crucial moment when Leonid Toptunov let the power of the reactor fall almost to zero before the test, that he had not given orders to raise it, and that he did not send the two now deceased trainees to the reactor hall to lower the control rods by hand. But it soon became clear that neither the design of the reactor nor the long trail of accidents and institutional cover-ups that preceded the disaster would be considered by the court.