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Film tribite to nuke blast kids

Jul 26 2009 by Neil McKay, Sunday Sun

A HISTORIC trip to the North by children from an area still contaminated by the world’s worst nuclear disaster has been captured on film.

Ruth Atkinson, 27, a script supervisor in the film industry whose credits include the James Bond film Die Another Day and the Dalziel and Pascoe TV detective series, filmed the visit by children from Chernihiv, in the Ukraine, to Weardale in County Durham earlier this year.

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The visit was arranged and funded by the charity Crook for Chernobyl, founded by Veronica and Malcolm Gibson six years ago.

The charity exists primarily to bring children from the poorer areas of the Ukraine, mostly from the Chernigov region, which lies close to the dead zone of Chernobyl, over to Weardale each year.

In doing so it provides a three-week relief for the children to breathe air, eat food and drink water that has not been contaminated by radiation.

Ruth’s mum Anita, of Harperley, near Crook, who hosted two of the youngsters, said: “The chance to eat uncontaminated fresh food and vegetables, and breathe fresh air, even for a period as short as three weeks, can increase a child’s immune system and is also thought to increase life span by several years.”

More than 23 years after reactor four at the nuclear plant exploded, the soil is still contaminated for hundreds of miles.

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