[PEN-L:5591] (Fwd) MISSILE STRIKES POLLUTE DANUBE

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Date sent:              Mon, 19 Apr 1999 12:32:34 -0700
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From:                   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:                MISSILE STRIKES POLLUTE DANUBE 

The Globe and Mail                                              April 19, 1999

MISSILE STRIKES POLLUTE DANUBE 

        By Tom Walker
        Special to the Globe and Mail
        Pancevo, Yugoslavia

        An ecological disaster was unfolding yesterday after NATO 
missiles ripped apart a combined petrochemical, fertilizer and 
refinery complex on the banks of the Danube River north of 
Belgrade. 
        A series of detonations that shook the city early yesterday 
morning sent a cloud of smoke and toxic gases hundreds of metres 
into the sky where they were considered to be relatively safe. 
Among the gases reported to be billowing above thousands of 
homes were chlorine, hydrochloric acid and phosgene. 
        Workers at the industrial complex in Pancevo decided to release 
tonnes of ether dichloride, a powerful carcinogen, into the Danube 
rather than risk seeing it blown up. At least three missiles strikes left 
large areas of the plant crippled, and oil and gasoline from the 
damaged refinery coursed into the river, forming slicks up to 20 
kilometres long. 
        Scientists warned people to stay indoors and to avoid fish caught 
from the Danube. They said the pollution would spread downstream 
to Romania and Bulgaria and then into the Black Sea. At least 50 
residents of Pancevo were reported suffering from phosgene 
poisoning and health ministry workers tried to round up gas masks 
for belated protection. Residents were told to breathe through cloth 
soaked in water and bicarbonate of soda as a precaution against 
showers of nitric acid and nitrogen compounds. 
        Thirteen hours after the first explosions, the Yugoslav army took 
journalists to the Pancevo site. 
        "This plant is 37 years old and has never witnessed anything like 
it. This is our worst nightmare," said plant director Miralem Dzindo. 
"The sickness of the minds that did this too us is enormous. By 
taking away our fertilizer they stop us growing food, and then they 
try to poison us as well." 
        He said the plant's production was strictly non-military, and 
noted that the warehouses had been largely empty when the North 
Atlantic Treaty Organization struck, because the attack had been 
expected and many chemicals and compounds had been moved to 
underground bunkers. 
        Still, the Serbian environment minister, Dragoljub Jelovic, 
accused NATO of trying to destroy the whole Yugoslav 
environment. He said pollution in the Danube and in the atmosphere 
above Belgrade "knows no frontiers." 
        "If NATO continues to attack us like this there is no future, he 
said. "A vast part of Europe is in danger. Those who ordered this 
crime do not have the minimum of sense." 
        Mr. Dzindo took journalists around the huge plant complex, 
advising reporters to put handkerchiefs over their faces as they were 
shown two destroyed fertilizer storage areas. 
        The choking air burned the eyes and nostrils and many reporters 
refused to get off the tour bus. 
        Slobodan Tosovic, a physician and toxicology expert, said the 
worst gases had been released after a cruise missile burst into a part 
of the plant where plastics were made. "Not even Reagan when he 
attacked Libya ordered missiles against this sort of facility," Dr. 
Tosovic said, adding that the explosion had produced phosgene-
caronyl chloride, along with carbon monoxide and hydrochloric acid.