Never before seen images from the weeks after the Chernobyl disaster show the horrific effects of radiation on the human body.
Infants born with birth defects and young children afflicted with ultra-rare cancers were just some of the horrors recorded among the people living in the towns and villages surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine.
James Jones' new HBO documentary " Chernobyl : The Lost Tapes" uses never-before-seen interviews and footage to detail the fallout after the explosion in Pripyat on April 26, 1986.
The film explains how some mothers delivered babies with legs fused like a mermaid's tail or covered with green mould-like spots covering their bodies.
After the blast, locals were admitted to hospital in their droves as doctors recorded hideous illnesses including birth defects, radiation poisoning, and rare cancers.
Soviet officials knew of the severe sicknesses among the population, but carried out a robust cover-up, banning any mention of nuclear-related illness.
In the documentary, one scientist says: "The accident at the Chernobyl power plant had no impact on the health of the population."
But in reality,"there are no healthy people after the accident," a man explains.
The Soviet leadership refused to take decisive action to lessen the horrors or save its citizens, not even the children.
One woman said : "Nobody was warned by anybody. Schools and kindergartens were open."
As locals writhed in excruciating pain in the region's hospital wards, young servicemen dubbed "liquidators" were drafted in to clean up the radioactive spillage.
One of the 5,000 men was Nikolai Kaplin, who called the decision "suicidal".
He tells the documentary: “The order had been given - it was suicidal.
“Nobody knew anything and they were literally going into hell.
“We didn’t have proper protection. The contact time is a few seconds but these molecules and atoms accumulate in the body.
“Sooner or later all our bodies showed signs. We all went through it - vomiting, coughing, extreme exhaustion. On the fifth day I started vomiting and choking.
“We were just cannon fodder.”
The 5,000 young men were paid 800 rubles (equivalent of £14,000) each and lauded as heroes in the Soviet Union.
But like lambs to the slaughter, their brief trip into the exclusion zone had fatal consequences and almost 80 per cent died over the next few years.
The documentary shows one serviceman bowing his head to show the bald patch on his head after his fair fell out - symptom of radiation poisoning.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, officials admitted the blast had been caused by a design error..
Though estimates say around 200,000 people died, the Soviet death toll remains seven.
