ON THE WSWS
Donate to
the WSWS!

News Feed
Contact the
WSWS
Editorial Board
New Today
News & Analysis
Workers Struggles
Arts Review
History
Science
Polemics
Philosophy
Correspondence
Archive
About WSWS
About the ICFI
Help
Books Online

OTHER
LANGUAGES
German
French
Italian
Russian
Polish
Czech
Serbo-Croatian
Spanish
Portuguese
Turkish
Sinhala-
Tamil
Indonesian

LEAFLETS
Download in
PDF format

WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe : The Balkan Crisis

Bombardment of Yugoslavia creates ecological disaster

By a correspondent in Romania
2 June 1999

Use this version to print

Romania is on the brink of an ecological catastrophe. The US aggression against Yugoslavia is going to have economic consequences for various neighboring countries, especially Romania, according to statements by Marian Ianculescu, of the Romanian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Ianculescu believes that a large amount of the contaminated substances thrown into the atmosphere as a result of the bombings are still unknown and their effects may be hazardous to any form of life.

“The danger is very great, because atomized hydrocarbons have penetrated the atmosphere. These substances have carcinogenic effects and lead to the destruction of the ozone layer. The destruction of this protecting stratum, in addition to facilitating the penetration of ultraviolet rays, which can produce skin cancer, also produces weather disturbances, such as tornadoes. Is it possible that the recent tornado that took place in the Lipova region is a result of the bombings?" Ianculescu asked. He states as well that in the Turnu Magurele region dead bees are being shoveled up daily, a phenomenon that has only occurred once before, after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine

At the same time, around the town of Bor in Yugoslavia, a region inhabited primarily by ethnic Romanians, the level of radioactivity is extremely high. As a consequence of the NATO bombings in Kriveli, Maidanpec and Mosna, in addition to copper, gold and silver mines, uranium mines were also attacked, which has dispersed radioactive dust throughout the region. All of the fruit dried up and fell from the trees, a phenomenon observed as well in the Banat region of Romania, on the border with Serbia.

See Also:
Why is NATO at war with Yugoslavia? World power, oil and gold
Statement of the Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site
[24 May 1999]
The NATO Attack on Yugoslavia
[WSWS Full Coverage]