Featuring revealing interviews with survivors speaking publicly for the first time, alongside rare insight into the CIA and Soviet responses, this series exposes a web of secrecy, miscalculation, and human cost. Astonishing new footage from inside the nuclear exclusion zone reveals how this scarred landscape is once again under siege as war encroaches on one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Source: TMDB
* 8.7 (3)DocumentaryUnited States · United Kingdom
National Geographic · CNN Original Series · Windfall Films · National Geographic Channels International
Runtime
44 min/ep
Age rating
TV-14
Release
19/04/2026
Score
8.7 / 10 (3)
Where to watch
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Seasons and episodes
Miniseries
4 episodes · 2026
Episode 1. Inferno
2026-04-19 · 43 min
Survivors recount the terrifying first 24-hours of the worst nuclear accident in history. After a reactor explodes during a safety test at a power plant in Ukraine, firefighters rush to the scene, unaware of the lethal levels of…
Episode 2. Cover-Up
2026-04-19 · 44 min
Two days after the explosion, the world wakes up to a terrifying global disaster. At the power plant, helicopter pilots try to put out a fire in the reactor core, braving plumes of highly radioactive smoke. Soviet authorities eventually…
Episode 3. Sacrifice
2026-04-20 · 44 min
Workers begin to clean-up the deadly radioactive fallout from the explosion. After troops establish an exclusion zone, Gorbachev orders the construction of a vast concrete sarcophagus to cover the destroyed nuclear reactor. In Vienna the…
Episode 4. Truth
2026-04-20 · 44 min
14 months after the disaster, plant operators face a Soviet show trial. At the reactor, scientists hunt for the deadly remains of the radioactive fuel. As the USSR crumbles, an independent investigation reveals the true cause of the…
