On April 26, 1986 at 1.23 am technicians at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine were ordered to allow the power in the fourth reactor to fall as part of an unscheduled, overdue test. To carry out this test they short-cut several procedures and de-activated several major safety systems that would have shut down the reactor in an emergency. There was an inherent fault in the reactor design and in particular with the “emergency shut down system" of which none of the workers were fully aware

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The test went horribly went wrong. Two explosions blew the 200 tonne roof off the reactor building and a fire started in the core which burned for several days. A cloud of deadly radioactive dust dispersed into the surrounding environment. This silent killer continued to pour from the damaged reactor for ten days. 

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The resultant fallout of radioactive material was over 90 times greater than that of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined! Over 70% of it fell on Belarus. Some of these highly carcinogenic radioactive particles have an half life of 24,000 years.

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Children are particularly susceptible to radiation induced illnesses and many have leukaemia, cancer of the thyroid and other cancers. Babies are still being born with serious deformities.The immune system of most children has been severely compromised by living in this environment. A visit to the UK can rebuild or “boost” the immune system to a level that can last for up to two years which is an important growth period for children and therefore of immeasurable value.