HBO says production will begin next year on a miniseries about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The five-part series will star Jared Harris as a Soviet scientist tapped by the Kremlin to investigate the accident.

Craign Mazin, known for The Huntsman: Winter's War, will write the script and act as an executive producer.

"From the moment Craig Mazin pitched us the story, we were convinced that this all-too-true tale of horror and redemption needed to be told," said Kary Antholis, president, HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming. "It will engage, and enrage, our viewers, as well as audiences around the world."

The series will dramatize the events of the 1986 Ukrainian nuclear catastrophe that resulted in widespread radioactive fallout. Thirty people were killed and more than 100,000 had to be relocated.

HBO announced at the Television Critics Association's summer meeting on Wednesday that production on "Chernobyl" is set to begin in Lithuania in spring of 2018.