Background to the Disaster
Date: April 26, 1986
Time: 0125 hrs
Location: No.4 Reactor, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, Ukraine (former Soviet Union)
Engineers conducting a controlled experiment on the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl have disabled several major safety systems to allow their experiment to proceed.
A mishap occurs leading to a loss of the water that continually cools the uranium fuel rods in the reactor’s core. The reactor starts to overheat and explosions blast the roof off the reactor building. As outside air rushes in, oxygen in the atmosphere fuels a raging fire in the remains of the reactor with temperatures of up to 2000 degrees Centigrade.
A deadly plume of volatile radioactive particles and gas rises up to a mile high above “ ground zero ”. The prevailing wind catches the deadly cloud and blows it over a wide swathe to the North West - towards what is now Belarus. The fire rages for nine days before being brought under control, nine days during which the fire fed the silent deadly cloud which was contaminating everything in its path. . . . . . . . . . .
Date: Present Day
Location: Belarus
Visiting the rural areas of Belarus today, one is presented with a picture of a rolling landscape of meadows filled with wild flowers, trees in blossom, birch woods, rivers and lakes, an idyllic pastoral scene, which belies the fact that this is a heavily polluted country.
The radioactive contamination caused by the disaster at Chernobyl in April 1986 was 90 times greater than that caused by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
70% of this contamination is estimated to have fallen on Belarus. Prime farmland, forests, rivers and lakes – all have been contaminated by the invisible mantle of radiation and will remain so for generations to come. Produce grown on contaminated farmland is itself contaminated; milk is contaminated because the cows have been grazing on contaminated grass; the contamination has now entered the food chain even to the extent that nursing mothers are feeding their babies contaminated breast milk.
Like many disasters, both natural and manmade, when the pictures disappear from our television screens and newspapers people soon forget what has happened. The people of Belarus, however, certainly have not forgotten what happened on April 26 1986. They are still living with the legacy of Chernobyl, the contamination of their country and the associated health problems – especially in the case of children where there are large increases in the incidences of thyroid cancer, leukaemia and heart defects.
What can we do?
How can we help?
One way we can help is by supporting the work of Chernobyl Children Life Line. The main purpose of the charity is to bring children from the contaminated areas of Belarus to the U.K. for respite health breaks.
While in this country the children live with volunteer host families for a four-week period during which time they enjoy a vastly improved diet of healthy food
(Which we take for granted) and have dental and eyesight checks. As far as the children are concerned they enjoy the holiday of a lifetime but the underlying reason they are here is to improve their health.
The medical authorities in Belarus estimate that a four-week health break in the U.K., away from the contamination of their homeland, allows a child’s immune system to recover to such an extent that their life expectancy is increased by up to two years.
Would you be prepared to give four weeks of your time to give a child two years extra life ????
Would you be interested in becoming a host family ???? Let us know.
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