Operation Cover UP

Until 1986 Chernobyl was very much like Taranaki, a thriving agricultural community known as the 'breadbasket of the Soviet Union'.

Then the world's worst nuclear accident happened. The local nuclear power station exploded, releasing 100 times more radiation than both atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Twenty years later, once-prime farmland soil is still dangerously contaminated, with rain washing radioactive dust particles into lakes, rivers, groundwater, plants, animals and the food chain.

Today, over a million children still live in this 'contaminated zone' suffering from tumours, birth defects, leukeamia, damaged immune and lymphatic systems, thyroid and bone marrow problems.

Winter temperatures habitually drop to minus 25C. Operation Cover Up's primary aim is to help keep Chernobyl's 145,000 young orphans keep warm.