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Thursday, July 19, 2007




A Phosphorus Test for the ‘Gov’t of Professionals’

Or should we say proffessionals? A total of 152 people have been hospitalized following the Monday train accident, 47 of them children.


A train carrying 15 tanks of liquid white phosphorus derailed near the western Ukrainian village of Ozhydiv, Lviv oblast. As a result, 6 tanks caught fire, releasing a toxic cloud that spread over an area of 35 sq miles.
Residents of neighboring villages were evacuated, some of them using their own transportation.

Vice-Premier Oleksandr Kuzmuk, chief coordinator of the relief effort, initially compared the disaster to Chernobyl, but soon toned down his estimates.
While the accident stands no comparison with Chernobyl, a Soviet-style cover-up campaign of sorts may well be the case.

In the face of parliamentary elections, Mr. Yanukovych — the No.1 Proffessional — needs to have his anatomy covered. At what cost? According to a report quoted in UP, to contain the negative publicity, clean up crews are forbidden to wear respirators.


It’s not so hard to believe, since former defense minister Kuzmuk, aka ‘Missile Man,’ has a proven record of experience in cover-up attempts. He denied role when, during a tactical missile exercise in 2000, a Tochka U hit a condo complex in Brovary, a town near Kyiv. In 2001, he was the last to take responsibility for accidentally shooting down a passenger plane in a
Black Sea air defense exercise, which led to his resignation.

Last month, the SBU issued a memo that warned of a 68 percent wear-and-tear rate in the country's train pool.
The Kazakh company that produced the Poland-bound cargo has vowed to repatriate the remaining tanks along with the contaminated soil.

The cause of the accident has yet to be determined. From media reports so far, it appears that investigators do not consider terrorism a top theory.


Photos courtesy of UNIAN

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with your post absolutely! And it upset me a great deal when they Kyiv Post ran an opinion piece stating - no cheap shots at the current officials. Lying to the public and not providing emergency aid is deserving of criticism. But all these guys care about is PR.

And the numbers of those effected keep rising.
"Number of people sickened by toxic smoke from phosphorus fire in Ukraine up to 145"
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/19/europe/EU-GEN-Ukraine-Contamination.php

And then wait until the rains come - here comes the acid rain.

Luida

Taras said...

That's why I never read The Kyiv Post. It often reads like an advertorial from the Yanukovych camp.

Too bad that rain won't fall on Rudkovsky’s residence. That would be a healthy growth experience, and one that's long overdue.

Michelle said...

Finally, some details of what happened!!!!

Anonymous said...

Talk about lies, lies, lies.

9 more containers of phosphorus found near Lviv by journalists while the Min. of Emergency situations Shufrych had clearly stated that the only full ocntainers were at the accident site.
http://5.ua/newsline/268/0/42552/

Luida

Taras said...

Michelle,

Here's one of the latest reports:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Ukraine-Contamination.html?ex=1342324800&en=081e32f034c451e6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Taras said...

Luida,

I suspect that Minister Shufrych, a native of Uzhgorod and a friend of the local pro-Kuchma establishment, knows a lot more than we do. And this is not the first regional episode involving a major environmental hazard.

http://www.infoukes.com/newpathway/24-2007_Page-7-2.html
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/16B25B68D33A75D0C1257281004FCA0F?opendocument

As those YESmen stock up on Monaco real estate, Ukrainian kids have to practice in front of the French embassy to get a visa to a folk festival.

And as our beau monde recharge their batteries at Europe’s finest resorts, western Ukraine is becoming a dumping ground for toxic waste from the EU.

Anonymous said...

info about phosphorus
http://www.chemicalland21.com/arokorhi/industrialchem/inorganic/PHOSPHORUS%20PENTOXIDE.htm

Anonymous said...

Yep, the following story really got to me. Three hours in the hot sun dancing away to try to reverse the decision of the French consulate who denied them entry visas to attend a folk concert with no explanation. Really sickening treatment of human beings. But I was never a Francophile and esp. in light of their attitude towards Ukraine's entering the EU.

As for the people in gov. knowing more about the story and situation - absolutely true. 70% of all cargo goods which are transported across Ukraine is classified as hazardous. More toxic stuff is traveling around the country then just potatoes and tomatoes. Scary that based on those numbers when an accident does occur - firefighters, etc. do not have the proper equipment such as oxygen tanks etc. In that K was right - the accident at Lviv was a second Chornobyl, in that the govt is just as out there as it was in 1986 and values human life just as cheaply.

Luida

Anonymous said...

Number of hospitalized keeps climbing. Now up to 184.

Taras said...

How dare you say that? Above all else, the government of proffessionals values life! Just look at all those lavish lifestyles.

It’s just that our worthless lives aren't listed yet. I gueYESs we should wait another decade or two, and, who knows, maybe we’ll get a valuation.

Anonymous said...

"Ukraine: media riddles around the phosphorous cloud"
http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/daily_news/ukraine:_media_riddles_around_the_phosphorous_cloud_200707213558/

Taras said...

I find this report somewhat inaccurate, both in style and substance.

>>Yushchenko issued an official call to speed up the closure of the Chernobyl atomic power plants on July, 20.

Qu'est-ce que c'est? Chernobyl was deactivated in December 2000. I haven’t heard of any orders regarding the four operational nuclear power plants we have in Ukraine.

The Prosecutor-General is Medvedko, not Medvedenko.

Just as phosphorus is used in making things that glow in the dark, may this episode be a dazzling reminder of our government’s proffessionalism.

Anonymous said...

Accident Prone Ukraine
http://www.eurasianhome.org/xml/t/opinion.xml?lang=en&nic=opinion&pid=799

Taras said...

The best summary of the Ukrainian bureaucracy’s “best practices” in crisis mismanagement.

Anonymous said...

TOXIC SPILL IN UKRAINE A TEST FOR GOVERNMENT MATURITY
http://www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2372308

Taras said...

Gee, the article’s title strikingly resembles my own, published four days earlier:) Thanks for the tip! I’m filing a copyright infringement lawsuit, and will sue the author all the way to the Constitutional Court:)))

Anonymous said...

"Ukrainian authorities, human rights, and environment protection in the light of "phosphorus" accident"
http://eng.maidanua.org/node/749

Luida

Taras said...

Thank God, no fatalities have been reported. I’m waiting for the results of the investigation.

Anonymous said...

"Кузьмук зізнався, що у „фосфорній катастрофі” розгубився і діяв не за інструкцією"
http://www.novynar.com.ua/politics/5560

"Кузьмук пояснив, чому він розпорядився гасити жовтий фосфор водою"
http://5.ua/newsline/230/20/43352/

Kyzmyk states why he lost his head in the phosphorus incident and did not follow directives and why he opted to douse the flames with water. (But does not really matter as UA has pointed out "that not a single minister or his deputy, high-ranked police officer or the Prosecutor General’s Office employee has been brought to trial since Ukraine gained independence in 1991? These officials do not have and have never had immunity to the law.")
http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2007/8/16/8609.htm

Luida

Taras said...

We can only guess at what Kuzmuk put himself through — mentally (and perhaps even physically) — when he had the audacity to compare the disaster to Chernobyl.

That ultra-expressive comment must have royally pissed Kuzmuk's boss off, whose reaction probably made him wish he had peed on the phosphorus and had kept his mouth shut.

As you know, according to sources dating back to the Orange Revolution, corporal punishment has its followers in the “Gov’t of Proffessionals.”

The Ukrzaliznytsya investigation panel has found the Kazakhs in violation of safety rules, claiming that the accident was caused by improper transportation.