• EFE

    Moscow

Updated Thursday, June 4, 2020 - 08:52

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Russian authorities will enact a federal state of emergency after a spill of some 21,000 tonnes of diesel fuel occurred last Friday at a Norilsk thermoelectric plant in the Arctic Circle.

"We consider it appropriate to declare this situation as a federal emergency," Russia's Minister of Emergency Situations, Evgueni Zínichev, said during a telematic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, called to discuss measures to remedy this serious technogenic accident .

The federal emergency regime allows the forces and resources of the federal organs of the executive power and state corporations to be involved , as well as giving the possibility of requesting help from the reserve fund of the Russian Government.

Delayed information

Putin supported this proposal and expressed his discomfort at the situation, since the Government was not informed in due course of the accident and its magnitudes.

"What happened and why did the authorities find out about this only after two days ? Is it that we are going to have to find out about the emergencies through social networks?" He admonished the governor of the Krasnoyarsk region. , Alexandr Uss.

Despite the fact that the spill took place on May 29, the information reached the Emergency Ministry on May 31, before which Putin asked to start an investigation into the management of regional officials.

"All that time the company tried to alleviate the consequences of the spill by its own means," said Zínichev.

Greenpeace reported yesterday that this is the first such accident in the Arctic and is comparable to the "Exxon Valdez" tanker spill three decades ago off the coast of Alaska.

According to Rosprirodnadzor, the Russian state entity responsible for ensuring the care of nature, 6,000 tons of diesel were spilled on the land and another 15,000 tons went to the rivers .

Possible intervention of the Armed Forces

The governor said that the local authorities will not be able to solve this situation in the next two weeks, since there is no clear plan on what treatment to give to the fuel and contaminated lands that are being withdrawn from the Daldykan and Ambárnaya rivers and their surroundings.

"The main problem lies, above all, in the treatment that will be given to the hydrocarbons that we are pumping," said the governor.

The Emergency Minister informed Putin that some 100 tons of fuel and contaminated soil have already been collected in Norilsk and the entity will send more troops and specialized equipment to work at the crash site on Thursday.

One of the proposed methods to destroy the spilled oil was burning, something that was rejected outright by the Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources, Dmitri Kobilkin. "This is a very complex situation. I can't imagine how such a large amount of fuel could be burned now in the Russian Arctic region," he said.

According to Kobilkin, it is necessary to recover the greatest amount of fuel, process it with the corresponding chemical reagents, and only when things become very difficult, burn a small part. The Minister of the Environment also told Putin that it will be up to the Ministry of Emergencies to mitigate the consequences of this ecological disaster, and did not rule out the need to involve the Armed Forces.

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