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| ENVIRONMENTAL ALERT ON ROMANIA’S BORDER WITH UKRAINE (18.07.2007) |
| (2007-07-18) |
| Last updated: 2007-07-19 20:39 EET |
Romanian Environment Minister Attila Korodi says he has learnt from the press about the accident which took place in Lvov region, western Ukraine, near the border with Poland and Romania. A train loaded with chemical substances came off the rails, and several carriages loaded with yellow
phosphorus went ablaze. The resulting toxic cloud has rapidly stretched over a surface of 90 square kilometers. Signatory to international treaties under which such incidents should be reported to the neighboring countries, the authorities in Kiev chose to remain silent.
Bucharest has sent a formal letter to the Environment Ministry in Kiev asking for additional information. The Romanian authorities have also tried to contact environment authorities in neighboring Ukraine by phone, but to no avail. Representatives of the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest have confirmed, in a phone conversation, they don’t have technical details about the accident. Under these circumstances, the authorities in Bucharest were left to create a simulation model based on incomplete data.
However, the simulation revealed that the danger of having the phosphorous infested cloud spread over Romania is relatively minimal, as the air mass is currently heading north. Nevertheless, the state of alert has been maintained. Here is Environment Minister Attila Korodi with details about the measures taken to contain the effects of any potential contamination.
“We have called on the National Environmental Protection Agency to continuously monitor air quality in the region, through its monitoring network and to announce any changes in air quality. At the same time, the National Waters Administration, through its own laboratories, has been constantly monitoring the quality of waters in the proximity of Romania’s border with Ukraine to keep us abreast of the latest changes in water quality.”
A noxious phosphorous-infested cloud is harmful to both the respiratory tract and the digestive system. However, in order to cause severe dysfunction, this chemical element has to be present in high concentrations in the atmosphere. The latest weather forecasts have revealed that the potentially-infested air-mass is currently hovering over the border with Poland and Slovakia, countries which haven’t shown too much concern about the incident.
(Florin Orban)
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