Environmental situation in Grozny “a serious health threat”
By Samira Lamayeva
GROZNY, Chechnya – During the Soviet era, Grozny was 17th on the list of the 100 most polluted and environmentally damaged places in the country. This was partly due to emissions from oil- and chemical-processing plants.
Despite the fact that these plants are no longer operational, the environmental situation in the republic, and the capital in particular, is still critical. As a result of two wars, some 37,000 tons of oil have burned, with 150 million cubic meters of gas escaping into the atmosphere.
The poor environmental situation, combined with stressful living conditions, has resulted in various phenomena, including a 47% increase in cancer diagnoses in the last year. In addition, the death rate among newborns is among the highest in Russia: in the central maternity hospital in Grozny, as many as five babies die each day.
Unfortunately, people often pay little attention to health risks. Searching for a way to earn money quickly, they have plundered metals from radiated locations. A notorious example is at a chemical plant in Grozny’s Zavodskoy district, where even brick walls were disassembled. People were unaware that the materials were dangerous.
Vakhid Atamazov, an advisor to the Moscow-backed President of the Chechen Republic, has said the Zavodskoy district of Grozny “should have long been declared an environmental disaster zone”. The building materials taken from there have already been used to build houses elsewhere in the republic, thus continuing to poison people, he added.
Meanwhile, the Chechen oil and gas company Grozneftegaz, prosecuted for environmental violations, got off lightly with a fine of 2 million rubles (over 70,000 U.S. dollars).
The republic needs a solution to the problem of the rubbish dumps which are growing across the republic. But of more immediate concern is to educate people about the health dangers of these abandoned buildings and other hazardous waste sites.(MG/E,T)
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