The best and most chilling adaptions of the Chernobyl disaster appeared on HBO Max in a five part miniseries simply called "Chernobyl.". As I watched it, I was filled with as much dread as any top notch horror movie.

Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986, when the explosion and fire struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about a two-hour drive away.

In the early hours of 26 April 1986, Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded after a planned safety test went catastrophically wrong. The Chernobyl disaster was the result of a chain of critical errors — and its fallout was unprecedented.

Photographs from the first days of the Chernobyl disaster and of the aftermath years later show the response, the evacuation and the long-term consequences of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

"Dogs at Chernobyl are now genetically distinct … thanks to years of exposure to ionizing radiation, study finds."