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Suffering continues

Suffering continues  more than a decade after the explosion of Ukraine's Chernobyl's nuclear power station, the radioactive leak is threatening to cripple the health of the younger generations. "Statistics show rising numbers of radioactivity-related diseases,' said Olha Bobyleva, Ukraine's deputy health minister. "We have also registered a growth in the number of general diseases, especially among children and pregnant women,' she said. Recently, four children died from thyroid cancer, taking the death toll due to this disesease to 1,200. All of them were under-18 in 1986 when Chernobyl's fourth reactor exploded.

The reactor exploded in April 26, 1986, spreading a poisonous radioactive cloud over much of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and parts of western Europe. The disaster killed 31 people, and affected thousands more. Health officials say food contaminated with radiation, brought from the high-radioactivity zone surrounding the station and sold in large towns, is another threat to public health.

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