Ukraine's Environment Protection Ministry is quoted as saying levels of phosphorus compounds in the air are 10 times higher than the norm at the site where a freight train carrying toxic cargo derailed.

But Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk said people in the area had no reason to worry.

"People can safely breathe the air in the area, drink water from their wells, harvest crops, graze livestock, and swim in [rivers and ponds]," Kuzmuk told journalists today after a meeting of disaster relief headquarters at the crash site. "All the data that was gathered yesterday and analyzed today gives me every right to affirm that, from the ecological point of view, this area is no longer contaminated."

The train carrying yellow phosphorus derailed and caught fire in western Ukraine on July 16, releasing a toxic cloud which officials say contaminated an area of 90 square kilometers.

Fourteen people remain in hospital with inhalation injuries. // Copyright (c) 2005. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. RFE/RL


Publication date: 18 July 2007   

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