More than 21,000 children from Belarus have stayed with UK families

A group of Caernarfon air cadets are raising money for children who live in the shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster by pulling a jet down a runway.

Members of the Air Training Corps (ATC) 1310 (Eryri) Squadron will pull a Hawk jet down a runway in RAF Valley on Wednesday over a distance of a mile-and-a-half for Chernobyl Children Life Line.

The Caernarfon link of the charity brings children, many of whom suffer from cancer and leukaemia, from Belarus to north Wales to holiday with local families.

Charity organiser Terry McDaid, 48, from Waunfawr, near Caernarfon, recently visited Belarus.

Babies are still being born with deformities and I have been to hospitals where children are just lying there dying. Terry McDaid, Chernobyl Children Life Line

He said: "The radiation is still so bad, the air is heavy and the water is polluted - it took me three weeks to recover.

"Babies are still being born with deformities and I have been to hospitals where children are just lying there dying.

"The medical situation is very bad and they are about 70 years behind us.

"The chance to get away for a month gives them two years of extra life."

The charity organises visits to Britain for children aged between eight and 16.

'Novel idea'

Seven children are due to stay with host families in north Wales for a month in October and another group will arrive for Christmas.

In 1986 an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station resulted in the biggest nuclear disaster in history.

More than 10,000 people died as a direct result of the accident.

The Ukrainian government says 3.5m people, a third of them children, became ill and the rate of thyroid cancer in affected areas increased ten times.

The contamination spread across neighbouring Belarus, and into Europe and hundreds of farms in Wales are still subject to restrictions due to sheep eating radioactive grass.

Richard J Foxhall, civilian committee chairman of 1310 (Eryri) Squadron said: "One of the aims of the ATC is to promote good citizenship and you can't get much better than this.