Peace Group remembers the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

Peace Group members had out leaflets

Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group marked the 22nd anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986, with a day of campaigning against nuclear power. They gave out leaflets to shoppers in Rochdale town centre and asked them to sign the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's petition against the government's plans to build more nuclear power stations in Britain.

Philip Gilligan said: "The government plans to build more nuclear power stations, when the existing ones are already polluting our planet and deforming our children. It suits those who will profit from this madness to promote myths about it. They don't want us to know the dangerous truth. They tell us that nuclear power is "safe", but the truth is that nuclear power is very dangerous. In 2006, New Scientist reported that the cloud of radiation spewed out during the disaster at Chernobyl on 26 April 1986 could end-up killing 60,000 people - 15 times as many as officially estimated. Windscale, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are not the only nuclear accidents whose aftermath threatens our futures; nor are they the last. Meanwhile, German government scientists have discovered that leukaemia rates in children increase according to how near their homes are to nuclear facilities.

"Its promoters tell us that nuclear power is 'clean', but the nuclear industry produces dirty radioactive waste that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. Sellafield spews-out radioactive effluents into the Irish Sea, which make it the most radioactive sea in the world. They tell us that nuclear power is 'the answer to global warming', but, in fact, nuclear power produces four times as much CO2 as wind-power per kilowatt generated, when all its processes (uranium mining, plant building, generation, decommissioning and dealing with nuclear waste) are considered.

"We need to remember the lessons of the Chernobyl disaster and to halt these plans. More nuclear power stations will expose us to even more risks."

The Peace Group and the Chernobyl Children's Project will be holding a joint fund-raising picnic on 29 June 2008. Anyone who wants to buy tickets should contact Rae Street on 01706 378043.