I dunno, maybe it's just me, but this story just does not add up. It appears to be attempting to hide a major cyanide spill directly into a water way which has completely eradicated all forms of life in the river through 3 countries so far. Hard to say if it is Y2K related, but better to put it on the list and watch for follow-up developments. __________________________________________

Cyanide Spill Hits Yugoslav Town The Associated Press Feb 12 2000 8:08PM ET

http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&cat=0180&id=2000021203556660

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - In what may be Europe's worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl, a cyanide spill contaminating a major river has moved into Yugoslavia and destroyed all life in the water, local officials said Saturday.

The spill originated in northwest Romania, near the border town of Oradea, where a dam at the Baia Mare gold mine overflowed Jan. 30 and caused cyanide to pour into streams. From there, the polluted water flowed west into the Tisa River in neighboring Hungary and then on into Yugoslavia.

A cyanide solution is used to separate gold ore from surrounding rock.

Eighty percent of the fish in the Tisa have died since the contaminant entered the country two days ago, said Mayor Atila Juhas of the northern town Senta.

``Enormous quantities of dead fish are floating on the surface, and the spill continues to spread,'' Juhas said in a telephone interview.

By Saturday noon, the concentration of cyanide in the water at the point where Tisa enters Yugoslavia from Hungary was 0.07 milligrams per liter, down from 0.13 milligrams several hours earlier, Tanjug news agency reported.

But the worst-polluted part of the flow was moving south, and more serious damage was expected later when the polluted waters reach the Danube River, probably early Sunday. The spill was moving at about 2.5 mph.

``The Tisa is a dead river. All life in it, from algae to trout, has been destroyed,'' said Istvan Backulin, the mayor of another affected town in the north. ``The spill is leaving nothing alive.''

Officials from several northern Yugoslav towns held an emergency meeting in Senta on Saturday, and urged locals to collect the fish in efforts to reduce levels of the pollution.

Restaurants in the region have already removed fish from their menus, and the alarm has spread south as far as the capital, Belgrade, which lies on the Danube some 80 miles to the south.

Juhas said drinking water would be safe since supplies come from wells far enough from the river. However, wildlife in the area near the river is in serious danger, he said.

Hungary's environmental minister, Pal Pepo, said only quick action from well-organized catastrophe-prevention work had prevented damage to human health.

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called for the appointment of a government commissioner to coordinate damage assessment, international legal steps, and clean-up projects.

``It's a European-dimension catastrophe,'' the EU transport and energy commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, told reporters on Thursday after talks in Budapest with Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi.

Local ecologists said it could take years before marine life reappears in the Tisa, according to Beta news agency.

The cyanide spill adds to the ecological strain of high pollution levels in Yugoslavia already, caused last year by NATO bombing that targeted oil refineries and factories.

Though Tanjug reported that authorities were taking ``adequate measures'' along the affected waterway, Juhas said nobody from the government in Belgrade showed up for the Senta meeting or provided assistance.

APO/Yugoslavia-Cyanide-Spill/

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), February 12, 2000

Answers

See also this discussion on this topic on TB2000:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002Y9z

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), February 12, 2000.

Jen

I checked out TB2000. This accident sounds nasty.

Here's info I just found, not that I accept the explanation just yet. Mining operations do run on imbedded systems (even in Russia). So yes, let's be open-minded and watch for updates and signs of Y2k failure.

~~~~

February 10, 1999

Romanian, Hungarian environmentalists analyze Somes river cyanide

Bucharest - The Hungarian Minister of Environment Pal Pelo and the Romania Deputy Minister of Environment Anton Vlad will meet Thursday in Oradea to discuss the negative impact on the water's quality due to cyanide polution on the Somes river last week, General Secretary within the Ministry of Waters, Woods and Environmental Protection George Lazea stated on Tuesday.

The meeting was urgently requested by officials within the Hungarian Environment Ministry through Hungary's Embassy in Bucharest. The two ministers will analyse the effects of a big quantity of cyanide from the company Aurul S.A. - Baia Mare poured into the Lapus, Somes and Tisa rivers. The incident occured at the beginning of last week due to a 25 meters breach in the den of the decantation pond of the company Aurul.

Tuesday the Romanian and Hungarian specialists measured the polution level of the waters on the affected area. Hungary denounced this "ecologic catastrophy" and intends to seek compensation for damages.

According to the Romanian Minister of Waters, Woods and Environmental Protection, the Somes and Lapus rivers were poluted by cyanide from S.A. Aurul S.A. in Baia Mare, the maximum concentration allowed in the water was exceeded on February 2, 2000 by almost 800 times in the Satu Mare section of the Somes river. Due to the increase of the water volume, the bridge of the decantation pond of S.C. Aurul broke for a length of 25 meters leading to the cyanide polution of the Lapus river and then of the Somes and Tisa rivers.

The county's civil defense authorities in Maramures and Satu Mare and the Hungarian party were informed about the polution caused by the decantation pond breach. The local authorities were also advised to forbid fishing and water consumption from the affected rivers. Due to the polution, operations at Aurul - Baia Mare were stopped and at the same time the interventation teams repaired the breach and thus the leakage was completely stopped.

In 1999 damage to the pipes which transported water resulted after the decantation operations of the sterile extracted from the ores caused several accidents in the area of the Aurul factory.

mediafax

Source: The Romanian Economic Daily, Archive No. 309

http://www.romanian- daily.ro/2000FEB/309arh.html

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 13, 2000.

Meant to say "embedded" systems, not imbedded. Thanks, Webster.

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 13, 2000.

(According to this article, the cyanide spill was weather related)

Sunday, February 20, 2000

River of death

Anger, fear and uncertainty on the Tisza after cyanide spill

By ROBERT H. REID -- Associated Press

ALONG THE TISZA RIVER -- ~snip~... A few hundred yards down the hill from Dobre's northern Romanian village Sasar, earthen walls of a reservoir owned by the Aurul gold mine had washed away in a downpour, sending 130,000 cubic yards of cyanide-laced water into a nearby creek.

From that nameless gully only 10 feet wide, the pollutant began a journey through southeastern Europe, killing tons of fish and other wildlife in three countries and transforming one of the region's major waterways into a river of death.

~snip~

Even before rain and melting snow swelled the reservoir over its 13 foot walls, many of the 2,500 inhabitants of Sasar had been nervous about living so close to the 230-acre pond and its deadly chemicals.

The cyanide was used to separate gold from ore extracted by the mine, owned by the Romanian government and Esmeralda Exploration Ltd., of Australia.

~snip~

Canoe, Canada's Internet Network

http://ww w.canoe.ca/CNEWSFeatures0002/20_cyanide.html

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 21, 2000.