A student vet has flown out to Chernobyl on a mercy mission to help the area’s abandoned dogs.
Ashley Pounder, 25, from Kew, who works at Parker and Crowther Vets in Birkdale volunteered to help dogs living around the nuclear power plant, the scene of a catastrophic accident in 1986.
Volunteering with Clean Futures Fund, which runs aid projects for communities affected by industrial accidents, she was part of a delegation working with the Dogs of Chernobyl project.
When the Chernobyl power plant’s No4 reactor exploded and spread radioactive materials into the environment, a 30km exclusion zone was established around the facility by the former Soviet Union and more than 120,000 people were evacuated from cities and communities.
Evacuees were not allowed to take anything with them for fear of contamination, so pets were abandoned.
The descendants of abandoned dogs now live as strays around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant or roam throughout the exclusion zone.
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