Review: Eric Schlosser on Serhii Plokhy, A history of nuclear disaster

In March, 1954, during the test of a powerful nuclear device in the Marshall Islands, one of the first signs that something had gone wrong was observed in the bunker where American scientists were sheltering, about twenty miles away. The toilet exploded, its contents flew straight into the air, and water poured from the bunker’s concrete walls. Calculat…