>From: "Mrs. Jela Jovanovic, Secretary General" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >=========================== >The Committee for National Solidarity >Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU > > >=========================== >The Committee for National Solidarity >Tolstojeva 34, 11000 Belgrade, YU > >-----Original Message----- >Date: Sunday, February 13, 2000 7:37 PM >Subject: SN346:Afp - Romanians poison Tisa and Danube > > >> >> BELGRADE, Feb 13 (AFP) - Fears that cyanide pumped out of a >>Romanian mine two weeks ago might have gravely contaminated two >>Yugoslav rivers -- the Tisa and the Danube -- remained high Sunday, >>despite government claims that poison levels in the water were >>falling. >> No new data on cyanide levels were released Sunday morning by >>the Serb ministry in charge of agriculture, water and forestry, >>though measures taken the day before had indicated that levels were >>falling in the Tisa. >> The ministry said 0.13 milligrammes of cyanide had been measured >>per litre of water in the Tisa early Saturday, but it had fallen to >>0.07 milligrammes two hours later. >> Around 600 kilogrammes of dead fish have so far been swept up >>from the Tisa, close to the towns of Senta, Kanjiza and Adad, after >>the cyanide entered Yugoslav waters, the ministry reported. >> In what some environmental experts have branded Europe's worst >>ecological accident since the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear >>plant in Ukraine, an estimated 100,000 cubic metres of cyanide -- >>used to extract gold from waste -- were released from the Aurul gold >>mine in northern Romania on February 1 after a reservoir wall >>collapsed. >> The cyanide first entered the Somes river in Romania, before >>passing into Hungary's Tisza river (the Magyar verson of Tisa), >>where the poison reached a density of 800 times its accepted maximum >>level. >> Hungary's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gabor Horvath reported last >>week that the cyanide had devastated the water's fish stocks, >>leaving a "five-kilometre long carpet of dead fish floating along >>the river." >> Mine authorities and Romanian officials, however, have >>downplayed the effects of the leak, accusing Hungary of gross >>exaggeration. >> On Friday, the poison entered Yugoslav waters, and was expected >>to have reached the level of Stari Slankamen on the Danube river, >>some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Belgrade, by Sunday morning. >> The Yugoslav government has banned the use of the Tisa's waters, >>and temporarily outlawed fishing on the river and on a portion of >>the Danube. > > >Associated Press Writer >Sunday, Feb. 13, 2000; 2:29 p.m. EST > >BECEJ, Yugoslavia –– Serbia on Sunday announced it will demand compensation >at an international court from those responsible for a cyanide spill that >has contaminated a major river, destroying most aquatic life. > >Serbian Environment Minister Branislav Blazic said it would take at least >five years for life in the Tisa River to recover. > >"The Tisa has been killed. Not even bacteria have survived," Blazic said as >he toured the area along the river in northern Serbia. "This is a total >catastrophe." > >"We will demand an estimation of the damage and we will demand that the >culprits for this tragedy be punished," he said. > >Romania, where the pollution originated, played down the environmental >damage. But people – not just aquatic life – are at risk because of the >spill, said Predrag Prolic, a professor of chemistry and toxicology at >Belgrade University. > >He said those with wells close to the riverbed are in danger. Birds feeding >off fish could die, he said. The poisoned water also can filter into the >soil and then contaminate grass, grain, and livestock, Prolic said. > >In Bucharest, Romania, Anton Vlad, an environmental official, suggested the >spill's effects had been overstated. > >"I have the impression that it is exaggerated," Vlad told national radio. > >The cyanide spill originated in northwest Romania, near the border town of >Oradea, where a dam at the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed Jan. 30, causing >cyanide to pour into streams. At the mine, a cyanide solution is used to >separate gold ore from surrounding rock. > >>From there, the polluted water flowed west into the Tisa in neighboring >Hungary, killing large numbers of fish there, and then into Yugoslavia. > >The spill was expected to reach the Danube River sometime Sunday. There was >no official word of that happening, but the Beta news agency cited >eyewitnesses late in the day who said the Danube was "all white with the >bellies of dead fish" between the area where it is joined by the Tisa, and >Belgrade, about 50 miles to the southeast. > >Vlad said that once the cyanide had reached the Danube, the pollution would >"disappear because the water levels in the Danube are tens of times higher >than the Tisa." > >Prolic said the Danube could dilute the spill enough to reduce its dangers, >but the spill still "destroyed life in the Tisa for years to come." > >He said the peak concentration of cyanide in the river was 20 times the >permissible level. Poisonous heavy metals such as lead can be left behind >after the cyanide dissipates and can also leech into the soil, Prolic said. > >In Serbia, dozens of volunteers and fisherman, wearing protective rubber >gloves, removed hundreds of dead fish from the Tisa to bury them. Heaps of >them littered the river bank. > >"Everything's dead, cyanide destroyed the entire food chain," said local >fisherman Slobodan Krkljes, 43. "Fishing was my job, I don't know what I'm >going to do now." > >In Becej, a town on the Tisa about 55 miles north of Belgrade, police were >making sure no contaminated fish were brought to the town's market for sale. >Restaurants in the region have removed fish from their menus. > >Experts and officials estimate that some 80 percent of the fish in the Tisa >have died since the contamination entered the country Friday. > >The fertile plains of Serbia's north are also the country's breadbasket. >Water from the Tisa is traditionally used for irrigation. > >Serbia's environment minister accused Romania of covering up the real >dimensions of the poisoning, which some environmentalists say could be the >biggest ecological catastrophe in Europe since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor >catastrophe in 1986. Blazic claimed the initial concentration of the cyanide >in Romania must have been enormous if the effects remained so deadly in >Yugoslavia, about 300-400 miles down the river. > >"Had we from Yugoslavia done something like this, we probably would have >been bombed," he said. > >Blazic was referring to that NATO bombing of Yugoslavia last year over its >actions in Kosovo – and a widespread belief here that the West is anti-Serb. >The cyanide spill adds to the ecological damage caused by NATO's bombing of >oil refineries and factories here. > > >Secretary General >Mrs. Jela Jovanovic >Art historian >=========================== >Secretary General >Mrs. Jela Jovanovic >Art historian >=========================== > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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