Many marine animals have been found dead on the coast of Kamchatka.
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Anna Strelchenko / TASS / Sipa USA / SIPA
Greenpeace denounces an "ecological disaster".
Carcasses of seals, octopus and sea urchins have been covering the coast of the distant Russian peninsula of Kamchatka in the Far East for several days.
This region, which had remained closed until the fall of the USSR because of its numerous military installations, is opening up more and more to tourists who came to admire its wild nature, its volcanoes, its whales and its bears.
But in recent days, many testimonies have reported the massive rejection on its Pacific Ocean coasts of marine animals.
The phenomenon has been spotted around Khalatyr Beach, popular especially with surfers, and Avacha Bay.
Environmental disaster happened in Kamchatka.
Experts found an excess of oil products (4 times), phenol (2.5 times) and other substances in water samples.
The extent of the pollution has not yet been determined.
Greenpeace requires immediate investigation.
pic.twitter.com/UNVMQjaumi
- Greenpeace Russia (@greenpeaceru) October 3, 2020
Pain in the eyes, throat and vomiting
Analyzes have established that there were "four times more petroleum products and 2.5 times more phenol" in the water than the authorized standards, Greenpeace said Thursday, specifying that the causes of pollution have not found.
On Instagram, Anton Morozov, the director of Snowave, one of the main surf schools on the peninsula, posted numerous images of the damage.
The star of the Web Yuri Doud, known for his punchy documentaries, relayed the testimony of this man who affirms that for three weeks, "everyone started to feel strange unpleasant symptoms after having surfed".
He recounts eye and throat pain and vomiting as a result of "poisoning" by unusually tasting and smelling water.
"The symptoms appear even without contact with water" adds Anton Morozov, indicating that the "poison" would have been carried for a month by a river flowing into the ocean.
View this post on Instagram
# тихийвопасности 🆘 4 - октября Друзья мы не хотим никого пугать, просто ждём результататов проб не ыотим никого пугать, просто ждём результатов проб водытатов проб водывотим, ского пугать, просто ждём результатов проб вододы,.
Мы просто хотим узнать как помочь океану и его обитателям.
Что это?
Природное явление или деятельность человека?
Какой ущерб экологи и здоровью?
Время работает против нас.
# ямытихийокеан # камчатка # жизньнатихом
A post shared by Anton Morozov l Snowave (@snowave_kamchatka) on Oct 4, 2020 at 12:18 am PDT
No industrial accident declared
Greenpeace claims to have contacted the authorities to "demand an immediate investigation into the causes of the pollution, an assessment of the scale and urgent elimination of the consequences" of the incident.
Local authorities have not declared any industrial accidents or unusual events recently.
Faced with the hundreds of thousands of views and shares of images of animal carcasses on the beach, they first posted photos of a sunny beach on Instagram, claiming that "the color of the water is normal, the 'the smell of the air is normal, the beach is perfectly clean'.
On the spot this weekend, the governor of Kamchatka Vladimir Solodov however threatened with dismissal anyone who would have disguised the gravity of the situation and promised analyzes to establish the facts, via samples sent to Moscow.
A rocket fuel leak?
Russian Minister of Ecology Dmitri Kobylkine, for his part, assured Monday, in an interview with the public channel Rossiya 24, that no excessive level of petroleum or chemical products had been detected in the samples analyzed.
He raised the possibility of a phenomenon "of natural origin".
"After the storms, there is an increase in the toxicity of microorganisms in this area which causes changes in (the content of) oxygen" causing this kind of phenomenon, very common according to him in the Japanese islands of the region.
Experts quoted in particular by the newspaper
Novaïa Gazeta
and the public press agency RIA Novosti, however, advance the hypothesis of an extremely toxic rocket fuel leak, heptyle, which would come from one of the many military installations present in Kamtchatka. .
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