A photographer visited the abandoned towns around Chernobyl more than 20 times over the past 25 years, and the captivating photos show just how suddenly time stopped in its tracks after the disaster

• On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located in the then-Soviet Union, resulted in a cloud of radioactive particles spreading across parts of Europe.
• The accident has gone down in history as the world's worst nuclear disaster.
• About 350,000 people were evacuated from the area surrounding the power plant known as the exclusion zone and were given little time to prepare for leaving their lives behind.
• As a result, many homes, places of work, and schools are untouched from how residents left them in 1986. 
• Scottish-born Canadian photographer David McMillan has visited the abandoned and contaminated areas inside the exclusion zone, including the city of Pripyat, more than 20 times over the course of 25 years.
• He compiled the resulting photographs into a book that was recently published called "Growth and Decay: Pripyat and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone."
• The photos show just how suddenly time stopped in its tracks for Chernobyl's residents following the explosion in 1986, when the area's cities were emptied of its inhabitants, who left with little to their name.
• "We can't imagine having to leave everything behind that we have," McMillan told Business Insider.
• At the same time, the series also shows what happens to a place when there's no one left to inhabit it.
• Take a look at McMillan's captivating photos.
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Photographer David McMillan told Business Insider that he grew up during the Cold War, when tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union posed potential threats of nuclear war.

Source: History

"I had this kind of fear," McMillan said of growing up during that time period.

He said he became concerned about the role nuclear weapons could play in political warfare.