Nuclear Afternoon

A CHILLING CHRONICLE OF MAJOR NUCLEAR INCIDENTS AROUND THE GLOBE, SPANNING MORE THAN SIXTY YEARSOur atomic history spans more than sixty years—and most of it isn't pretty:March 1958: A U.S. Air Force B-47 accidentally drops an atomic bomb on the town of Mars Bluff, South Carolina.January 1978: The Russian spy satellite Cosmos 954, carrying a nuclear reactor, fails to attain orbit and falls back to earth.March 1979: A series of mishaps causes a nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island to overheat.April 1986: The Russian Chernobyl-4 reactor explodes, releasing radioactive materials throughout the area.With compelling detail and eyewitness testimony, Clyde W. Burleson illustrates the human drama and the nuclear problem with fourteen incidents throughout the United States and abroad, and discusses just how much effort it takes to right the world when an accident occurs.Today, with gas prices skyrocketing, nuclear power is being billed as the savior to our energy crisis. In the United States, thirteen new reactors have been proposed and, worldwide, sixty-five are on order. This book calls our attention to the awe-inspiring power of nuclear energy when something goes wrong and outlines what individuals and nations must do to limit the damage from disasters that surely will occur.