I remember
when the accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) happened. It was the first time anything
major transpired with a nuclear power plant. At the time I was pro-nuclear – it
was hailed as the way forward: clean, limitless energy. I’ve always had a
fascination with science, and nuclear energy and space exploration seemed to be
the pinnacle of our achievements: splitting the atom and putting men on the
moon. But the honeymoon with nuclear was over.
The real
storm hit with Chernobyl. By the time it happened in 1986, I was working in the
nuclear sector, trying to prevent what was called ‘human error’ from unleashing
nuclear disaster elsewhere. Whereas with TMI it was mainly the threat of a
large-scale reactor meltdown, and the fact that they lost control and some
radioactivity got out, Chernobyl was the real deal, the nightmare scenario. The
reactor core was split wide open. I recall watching on TV as the helicopters flew
over Reactor No.4, pouring cement onto an unquenchable fire. I already knew a
lot of those heroic men would die, sooner or later.
Many years
later, after I’d moved out of nuclear into aviation safety, I watched the
Fukushima accident unfold, after the mother of all tsunamis slammed into 400km
of Japan’s shore. I called people who still worked in the industry, tried to
offer help; but I was outside now, and so witnessed it as one of the hapless
public, wondering how many more such accidents we could take. As with
Chernobyl, there was heroism, as well as political hubris that did little to
help the situation.
A while ago
I got called back to take part in a nuclear power plant emergency exercise in
the US. It was pretty realistic, simulating a hurricane that systematically
defeated the safety barriers one by one. By the end the crew were pretty shaken
up, even though it was an exercise. Such men and women are paid well. Most of
the time their job can be a bit boring, but when things go wrong, they earn
every penny.
I’ve always
had a soft spot for heroes. And I’d heard this story about three men, divers,
who had to open a valve underwater during the Chernobyl meltdown, to stop a
massive explosion that would have bathed much of Western Europe in a
radioactive cloud. I’d heard they all
died shortly after of radiation poisoning. It was actually the inspiration for
my novel 37 Hours, originally titled ‘One Way Dive.’ In fact, the truth was
less glamourous, if that’s the word. Three men did close the valve, but it
wasn’t fully underwater, and although one died some years later after a heart
attack, the other two were still around. Nevertheless, they saved the day, and
many of their comrades died.
I’ve not
been to Chernobyl, though some of my colleagues have, and have told me about it.
It’s still pretty radioactive in parts, and will be for some time. There are
tours you can go on. But there is one place, deep inside, dubbed the elephant’s
foot, where a chunk of the remainder of the radioactive core sits in a
distorted mound of slag. It’s intensely radioactive. That’s where I wanted to
put my protagonist, Nadia, on the one hand fighting her nemesis, but on the
other being attacked by invisible radiation.
Reviews say
the Chernobyl section of the book, which is a quarter of the novel, is
unputdownable, and that Chernobyl’s Reactor No.4 ‘crackles to life.’ Maybe so.
For me it is real. I wrote it because I don’t want people to forget, how badly
we can screw up, and how valiant we can be in trying to save the day. I don’t
want people to forget how much we owe those who paid with their lives.
After 37
Hours, I thought I was done with nuclear. But in the next book, not yet titled,
Fukushima makes an appearance via one of the characters who was a doctor there
at the time. Maybe I’ll never be done with it.
A long time
ago I wrote a non-fiction book about human error and nuclear safety. At the
time, also 1986, the same year as Chernobyl, the Space Shuttle Challenger
tragedy had just occurred, and I dedicated the book ‘to the seven’, meaning the
seven astronauts who lost their lives. The dedication in 37 Hours is to my
elder brother, Kevin. But I guess the book is also a dedication to all the
unsung heroes in the nuclear industry as well.
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