Landslides threaten radioactive waste dumps

Recent landslides in southern Kyrgyzstan threaten to flood nearby areas, including radioactive storage sites containing Soviet-era uranium waste, UN and government officials said. Amanbai Sarnogoev, an official of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Ecology and Emergency, had told the United Nations on Tuesday that the overall situation in the area was stabilising, but the ministry was monitoring the threat of the landslides daily, a UN official told IRIN from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Olga Grebennikova, the United Nations Development Programme's Public Affairs Officer, said that according to information provided by the ministry, a landslide started to move in Mayluu-Suu city of Jalal-Abad Oblast on Sunday, partially covering the channel of the Mayluu-Suu river. This had led to the flooding of the Kyrgyzelectroizolit power plant. The ministry warned that further damming of the river channel could lead to the formation of an artificial lake, which, if it burst, could threaten the local population. The landslide is 200 metres wide, 200 metres long and 400 metres high, fortunately missing one radioactive waste dump. The ministry has already sought help from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as neighbours and Russia, to solve the problem of tailing, or radioactive, waste dumps, in the region. Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev told a news conference in Bishkek on Monday that if landslides caused floods, the radioactive waste might get into the region's water supply, thereby causing an ecological catastrophe. "Landslides in the region of the Mayluu-Suu are very dangerous as there are 23 sites around there where Soviet-time uranium waste is stored," Tanayev was quoted by the French news agency, AFP, as saying. The report quoted experts saying that such a catastrophe would devastate not only Mayluu-Suu, a town of 23,000 people, but would also sweep radioactive waste through an overcrowded and largely agricultural region in neighbouring Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, the issue of the dumps will be discussed at the heads of UN Agencies meeting in Bishkek on Wednesday, where James Lynch, the UN Resident Coordinator, will report on the situation in Mayluu-Suu. Kyrgyzstan inherited some 50 radioactive waste sites after it gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, including the 23 sites near Mayluu-Suu, which are around 50 years old.