x
A serious accident occurred in the Siberian city of Norilsk: Last week, 20,000 liters of oil poured from a thermal power plant into a river. The authorities have declared an emergency.
A serious oil accident occurred near the Siberian city of Norilsk: 20,000 liters of diesel flowed into the Ambarnaya River last week after a leak in a thermal power plant, the prosecutor of the Krasnoyarsk region said. The authorities declared the state of emergency.
The public prosecutor initiated an investigation. Oil pollution in the Ambarnaya River was clearly visible on satellite images published by the WWF and videos distributed on the online networks. The environmental protection organization WWF welcomed the construction of a dam to prevent the oil from flowing into a lake.
According to the Russian mining group Norilsk Nickel, the accident was triggered by a leak in a diesel tank in the thermal power plant. Accordingly, the diesel tank was damaged when the pillars supporting it unexpectedly sank into the ground. The pillars have supported the tank "without problems for 30 years," the company said. The city of Norilsk, located above the Arctic Circle, is built on permafrost. The ice melt caused by climate change threatens the entire infrastructure of the city.
Norilsk Nickel boss Sergei Lipin said dozens of workers had already removed 500 cubic meters of the polluted water. The purge continues. According to the state Russian environmental regulator, no groundwater was contaminated by the accident.
Four years ago, a Norilsk Nickel plant had already suffered a pollutant accident that massively polluted another river in the region. At that time, the group was fined the equivalent of less than a thousand euros.
