- HBO's "Chernobyl" series tells the story of the world's worst nuclear power plant accident, which took place near the city of Pripyat (once part of the Soviet Union).
- Most of the characters who appear in the show existed in real life - and a few have been willing to share their stories.
- We've rounded up actual accounts of the moment when disaster struck on April 26, 1986.
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HBO's "Chernobyl" series paints a fairly accurate portrait of the 1986 nuclear disaster, which sent plumes of radioactive material coursing through Pripyat, a city that was once part of the Soviet Union.
As the series shows, the disaster was the result of a flawed design and human error, which caused the core of a nuclear reactor to open into the atmosphere.
Read more: 16 people who helped with the Chernobyl cleanup share their devastating first-hand accounts
With a few exceptions, most of the characters in the series were involved in the real-life accident. Some lived to tell their tales, while others did not.
A few of those who survived were willing to recall the moment when they either found out about the explosion or witnessed it with their own eyes. Here are their firsthand accounts, told in the years since.