Children exposed to Chernobyl taken in by Wash. families, given medical checks

SEATTLE — Since the Chernobyl explosion in April 1986 -- a nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union -- about 350,000 people were forced out of their homes. The entire town of Pripyat, home to the nuclear plant, was evacuated, never to return.

Thirty plant employees died either in the explosion or from radiation sickness within the following months. For many, death is slow: the result of medical issues caused by radioactive fallout.

The death toll is subject to much dispute, as many deaths attributable to the explosion have resulted and will continue to result from radiation.

Children exposed to the fallout are being hosted by Washington state families for a weeks-long stay, medical screenings and treatments.

Low levels of radiation have even been traced to rainfall in the United States. Just this April, remaining residue from the explosion was found in milk in Belarus, according to reports from the Associated Press.

"On the edge of Belarus' Chernobyl exclusion zone, down the road from the signs warning "Stop! Radiation," a dairy farmer offers his visitors a glass of freshly drawn milk," reporter Yuras Karmanau wrote. "Associated Press reporters politely decline the drink but pass on a bottled sample to a laboratory, which confirms it contains levels of a radioactive isotope at levels 10 times higher than the nation's food safety limits."

This year, April 26 marked the 30^th anniversary of the devastating accident.

"We are welcoming nine children and their translator, who have come all the way from Belarus," co-founder of Hope for Chernobyl's Child, Elizabeth Tennison, said Tuesday while waiting at Sea-Tac Airport. "(Belarus is) a small Kansas-sized country just north of the Ukraine where they took 70 percent of the radiation as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986."

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Tennison hopes the children will return to their countries after gaining some weight and being checked, and ideally treated, for medical conditions.

Belarus is described by the Chernobyl's Child organization as a small, agrarian country with considerably different opportunities for medical care than those in the United States.

Often, many of the children have several vitamin deficiencies; some have hearing, eyesight or allergy issues. Some even have chronic lung or kidney problems that can be treated during their stays in Washington state.

Each child will stay with their own host family for six weeks. The translator stays in their own host home as well. Many of the children will visit the coast of the Pacific Ocean, see animals at local zoos, and rest in the grass of Washington’s parks.

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Tennison said tickets donated to the organization, like tickets to the aquarium or zoo, are always appreciated and have given kids joy in years past.

A repeat host brother, Harrison Oodright, was waiting at the airport to take the child his family would be hosting back home. This is the family's fourth year hosting the same little girl, named Yulia.

Oodright recalled how nice Yulia was and that they often went to Hood Canal together for family outings during the summers.

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When asked if he knew why Yulia was staying with him each year, Oodright agreed the children came to get healthier and have some fun.

"Where they are," Oodright said. "There was, like, a nuclear waste ... that made all the plants bad for eating and it made all the things that ate the plants bad for eating too."

When Tennison was asked why she felt the Hope for Chernobyl's Child organization was important, she said, "Kids are important wherever they are."

"They get to understand they are loved somewhere else," she added.

Information from the Associated Press is included in this report.

Cox Media Group