Chernobyl: Why you'll love HBO's new five-part miniseries

HBO's Chernobyl - with its impressive IMBD rating of 9.6 - is taking the world by storm. It ranks even higher than Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.

But what makes Craig Mazin's dramatised version of the true story of the Chernobyl disaster, the worst man-made catastrophe in history, so compelling? As per HBO:

Chernobyl dramatizes the story of the 1986 accident, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, and the sacrifices made to save Europe from the unimaginable disaster.

The scariest show on TVApart from the award-winning cast - Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsg rd, Emily Watson and others - the fear factor also plays a significant role. Twitter user Mark Allotey summed it up succinctly:

So, haven't seen anything as horrifying as Chernobyl in my life. Nothing comes close. Pure terror and it all happened for real. Sometimes dramatised TV can do more to open your eyes about something that really happened than any other medium.

In addition, it has been described as one of the scariest shows on TV and goes into great detail to depict the explosion of Chernobyl reactor. The explosion also saw about 400 times as much radioactive fallout as the Hiroshima bomb.

To give you an idea just how catastrophic the event was, children are still being born with horrific deformities, more than three generations later. In fact, the cleanup crew all died of radiation.

As a result, there's an exclusion zone of approximately 30 kilometres that surrounds the Chernobyl Power Plant. Furthermore, it has the highest levels of radioactive contamination in the world.

The area won't be fit for human habitation for another 20 000 years.

Chernobyl television series detailsThe series consists of five episodes, titled 1:23:45, Please Remain Calm, Open Wide O Earth, The Happiness of All Mankind, and Vichnaya Pamyat. And each episode is about 70 minutes in length.

Chernobyl main cast

Jared Harris as Valery Lagasov, Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy.

Stellan Skarsg rd as Boris Shcherbina, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Bureau for Fuel and Energy.

Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk.

Jessie Buckley as Lyudmilla Ignatenko.

Adam Nagaitis as Vasily Ignatenko.

Paul Ritter as Anatoly Dyatlov.

Sam Troughton as Aleksandr Akimov.

Robert Emms as Leonid Toptunov.

Adam Lundgren as Vyacheslav Brazhnik.

Karl Davies as Viktor Proskuryakov.

As well as Jay Simpson as Valery Perevozchenko.

Chernobyl series specs

Age restriction: TV-MA

Genre: History, Drama

Internet Movie Database score: 9.6 (34 656 votes)

Created and written by: Craig Mazin

Directed by: Johan Renck

Production location: Lithuania

How to watch ChernobylThe five-part series is available on DStv as well as M-Net. The first episode aired on Wednesday 22 May at 22:00 on channel 101.

Chernobyl is also available on Catch Up and DStv Now.

Watch: HBO's Chernobyl Trailer

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