BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

02/08/2007

Belarus not to refuse from railway transit of phosphorus-official

MINSK, August 2 (Itar-Tass) - Belarus does not intend to refuse from railway transportation of phosphorus made in Kazakhstan via the republic's territory to European countries, head of the Belarussian Railway Company Vladimir Zherelo said on Wednesday.

Belarus "has been working not one decade" with the transportation of Kazakh phosphorus, the official said answering an Itar-Tass question. "And due to the crash that took place in the Lvov region of the neighbouring Ukraine recently we will not refuse from these shipments," Zherelo pointed out stressing that "thoroughly worked out schemes and systems of safe shipments of yellow phosphorus and even more hazardous cargoes" are applied on the Belarussian railway. In particular, specialists have developed special routes bypassing major populated localities. Sixty wagons with Kazakh yellow phosphorus have been transported via the Belarussian territory over the first half of the year.

"Taking into consideration the crash on the Lvov railway of Ukraine, we are taking additional measures for ensuring safety of transportation of this cargo. But if we refuse from work if a slightest malfunction or somebody's error occur we will simply lose it," Zherelo stressed.

Yellow phosphorus was shipped from the Kazakh station Asa to the railway station Oklesa in Poland. As a result of a crash near Lvov on July 16 from 58 wagons, 15 tank cars with yellow phosphorus overturned, and six of them caught fire over depressurisation. During the fire phosphorus mixed with the air, as a result a cloud of poisonous substances spread onto an area of about 80 square kilometres. Five districts of the Lvov region with a population of about 11,000 people happened to be in the contamination zone. As many as 164 people, including 15 rescuers, who participated in the fire fighting efforts, were hospitalised.

According to preliminary conclusions drawn by the Lvov regional Prosecutor's Office, the most probable cause of the derailment of the train carrying yellow phosphorus outside Lvov on July 16 is violation of safety rules during the loading of phosphorus and inappropriate state of the railway track.

The final causes of the crash will be established after the Prosecutor' s Office gets the results of the line-of-duty investigation conducted by the Ukrainian Railways Company.

Transport workers of Kazakhstan hoped to settle within a week with Belarus the issue of transit of yellow phosphorus to Europe via the Belarussian territory.

"We are holding negotiations on Belarus together with railway companies in order to determine the transit route across the Belarussian territory," Kazakh Transport and Communications Minister Serik Akhmetov said at a telephone conference in the government on Tuesday. He said that he "sent a corresponding letter to the Belarussian transport minister."

In the view of Kazakh specialists that have visited the crash site and examined the state of railway tracks at the section of derailment of the tank cars with yellow phosphorus, the crash was caused by violation of the track repair procedure. However, the Ukrainian Transport Ministry said the possible cause of the derailment was unsatisfactory technical condition of wagons and failure to comply with the technical conditions of loading of yellow phosphorus by the Kazakh freighter.

A special train with tank cars with yellow phosphorus and two fire-fighting trains on July 26 was sent from the Krasnoye station in the Lvov region back to Kazakhstan via the Russian territory. The train comprised 15 tank cars with phosphorus that overturned in the Lvov region on July 16, three tank cars with contaminated soil, phosphorus and foam that was poured on burning substance.

Under an agreement between three countries, Kazakhstan expected the return of that train with phosphorus for its further recycling.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11762943&PageNum=0