Amur River Fish (Siberia) Turning Up With Bleeding Ulcers

[hatrack]

Moscow - Fish with bleeding ulcers are turning up in the Amur River in Russia's Far East, sharpening concerns about the effects of a factory accident that sent a toxic chemical slick coursing through the waterway, Russian media reported on Tuesday.

Russian scientists are doing tests to determine whether the ulcers were caused by the chemicals dumped into the river by an explosion at a Chinese plant on a tributary of the Amur, which forms the border between Russia and China and then flows through Russian territory to the Pacific Coast, the reports said. According to the ITAR-Tass news agency, ichthyologists have seen the problem in the past but said that the degree to which the fish have been affected in this case is worrisome.

In comments on state-run Rossiya television, a Russian official said that studies of the river and its aquatic life had found high concentrations of chemicals that the Chinese had not listed when they informed Russia of the content of the spill.

The chemicals included ethylbenzene, butylbenzene and chloroform, said Sergei Andriyenko, first deputy natural resources minister in the Khabarovsk region government. The list of toxins China provided included benzene, nitrobenzene and others. Lyubov Kondrateyeva, the director of a laboratory at a Russian Academy of Sciences environmental studies institute, told Rossiya that the chemicals found in Amur fish could be hazardous to humans.

EDIT

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=143&art_id=vn20060215035550557C766650

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Give them Nexium and a lecture on Personal Responsibility™

And people tell me I'm encouraging immorality when I make the point that xenoestrogenous pollutants are known to cause cancer, sexual dysfunctions, and obesity alike.

--p!
But mice aren't humans! They don't have immortal souls!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Nitrobenzene is the one that caught my eye -- HIGHLY TOXIC.

And benzene is a liver carcinogen.

The Amur River valley used to be the middle of nowhere, now it is the heart of an industrial region? Amazing what can happen when no one's looking.