Erik Tollefsen is the head of the Weapon Contamination Unit of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He echoed the warning.
In the past, we knew exactly where the dangers were. We don’t now. “All we know is they’re somewhere downstream,” he said to Reuters on Thursday.
Tollefsen stated that landmines found in Denmark during 2015 are still active and functional.
Greg Crowther is the director of programs at the Mines Advisory Group (a British NGO). He also highlighted the long-term impacts of mine subsidence, and warned of the dangers of unexploded bombs ending up in public places and homes.
In a press release, he stated that “some of them may be damaged or unstable. They could also be buried beneath silt and flood debris or lodged in gardens, homes or public places.”
Some of these weapons may be so deeply buried that it will be difficult to detect them in the future. However, they could still be dangerous if they were unearthed, say, during reconstruction after a conflict.
Health risks are also associated with the dam collapse, in addition to mines.
Zelenskyy stated in an on-line briefing Thursday that the dam breach not only hampered water supplies but also caused warehouses to be flooded, including those containing hazardous chemicals such as fertilizer. He also said “anthrax burial sites” in Russian controlled territory. He said that animal burial sites, along with sewage systems, were also inundated.
He added that all of this is heading for the Black Sea – a vital waterway for international transportation and food supplies.
Videos posted on social media by Ukrainian officials and the military show debris, including a roof, washing up along the Black Sea coast in Odesa.
“Pollution from the inundated area gets into the groundwater quickly, poisons rivers and then enters the Black Sea Basin,” Zelenskyy said.
“There is no such thing as a ‘destruction of nature”somewhere else’. Everything in the world is interconnected.”
Matthew Mulligan, Sara Mhaidli and others contributed.
