A guard stands at Dityatki checkpoint, marking a 30 km (18-mile) zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant April 23, 2013. Ukraine will mark the 27th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst civil nuclear accident, on April 26. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

The photograph you see above isn’t the result of Photoshop or infrared photography. Captured by Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros, it shows what the landscape of Ajka, Hungary looked like half a year after the Ajka alumina plant accident — an industrial disaster in which 35 million cubic feet of toxic waste flooded the land to a height of around 6.5 feet. Mészáros lined up the thick red line caused by the sludge with the horizon line to obtain this surreal image.

A doctor performs surgery on an injured man with a part of an aluminium alloy fence through his chest after a car accident in Zhumadian, Henan province, China, September 15, 2014. The doctor managed to surgically remove the piece. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A man carries a television away from a fire in a slum area next to railway tracks in Kampung Bandan, North Jakarta, Indonesia January 26, 2016. According to local media, the fire destroyed approximately 100 wooden dwellings, built along a busy railway line. No casualties were reported. (Photo by Reuters/Beawiharta)

A rail worker fixing a fog warning notice at South Woodford Railway Station in Essex. (Photo by H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images). 20th October 1938

A woman peels potatoes for sale at a market located along a railway line in West Jakarta, Indonesia March 1, 2016. (Photo by Garry Lotulung/Reuters)

A couple embraces at the railway station in Kramatorsk, on May 20, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Sergey Shestak/AFP Photo)

A light railway train passes through a residential building on March 18, 2017 in Chongqing, China. Chongqing Rail Transit No.2 and a 19-storey residential building have been built across each other. The railway set its Liziba Station on the sixth to eighth floor in the building with noise reduction equipment. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)