I got this softcover from an online seller, after seeing this documentary about the Piper Alpha disaster based on the book. The disaster cost 167 lives, the worst death-count in the history of offshore oil, and was all the more tragic for the chain of events that led to it: there were so many points at which the situation might have been saved or at least ameliorated...

The book goes into the history of the platform and the nature of the work, and features many first-person accounts from survivors, highlighting the harrowing situation - trapped on a blazing oil rig hundreds of feet above the ocean, under conditions so bad that several of the boats that attempted a rescue were damaged themselves. The struggles of the survivors - and, through their accounts, of many who did not survive - and the heroism of the rescuers are awe-inspiring, but the failures along the way of emergency plans, backup systems, and the communication that should have cut off the flow of oil much earlier, all those things are appalling.

One poignant note, from the author's afterword: at a showing of the documentary in Aberdeen, one of the survivors - who'd lived with guilt for thirty years that he'd pushed another man to his death while frantically making his own escape - learned that the other man had also survived!

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2019 Four Elements release challenge. ***