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Chernobyl fallout continues | The Courier-Mail

Chernobyl fallout continues

Courier mail David Murray

April 26, 2009 12:00am

THE charity flights arrive at London’s Gatwick Airport twice a week. On board are sick, disadvantaged or dying children from areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

More than two decades after the world’s worst nuclear accident, thousands of youngsters are still being brought to the UK each year.

Born up to 15 years after the event, they spend a month recuperating with volunteer families from the Chernobyl Children Life Line………………

………….for charity founder Victor Mizzi, who personally greets almost every flight, there is no question that Chernobyl is an ongoing tragedy.

“The situation is just as bad now with cancer and leukemia as it was in 1986,” claims Mizzi, who has brought more than 46,000 children from affected areas to Britain…………………………

More than 340,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area over the following years, never to return to their contaminated homes.

Today, the area around Chernobyl remains a wasteland, with habitation banned in a 30km “zone of alienation”.

In the abandoned city of Prypiat, once bustling with a population of 50,000, decaying shells of buildings are all that is left…………

………….Greenpeace, for one, has estimated more than 90,000 people will die from cancer and that other illnesses will send the toll soaring into the hundreds of thousands.

April 27, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment, Russia | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium