Luxury apartments: what lies beneath?
Published 31 October, 2008, 05:48
Moscow residents are very concerned that new apartment blocks may have been built on sites holding low grade nuclear waste. The waste was dumped during Soviet times and the developers insist it has been cleaned up, but that hasn't allayed the fears of some people living close by.
A brand new set of apartment blocks some 30 minutes from the centre of Moscow have been built in an area which a little more than a year ago used to house a deep radioactive waste dump.
It was emptied and decontaminated by the major radioactive waste manager for this part of Russia.
Another piece of land in the east of Moscow is also on the organisation's 'mission accomplished list'.
Authorities who've assessed the clean-up say everything was done within norms, but residents of the neighbourhood say it's anything but clean.
They are desperate to stop construction there in order to avoid a deadly leak of radiation.
“I believe they put all the money in their pockets and pretended they did the job, but the way they did it was outrageous. They didn't even ask people to cover their balconies to avoid possible radioactive dust in their homes,” a local resident says.
Moscow's potential hot spots
It's just one of more than 600 contaminated areas that are said to have been cleaned up by the organisation over the last decade in Moscow alone. They included around 20 large-scale dumps which held tonnes of low and medium-level radioactive waste.
A dosimeter shows that the level of radiation on the spot is around seven, while the norm is up to 25.
But the locals’ main fear is not on the surface, it lies beneath the five-metre trench that builders have dug in the area. Waste managers say they have taken away and checked most of the contaminated soil down to that depth, but what's beneath remains unanswered.
Nevertheless a multi-storey underground garage is already in the builders' plans.
“We have examined that soil five metres deep. Everything is ok. Some people are just blowing things up,” says Vladimir Safronov from the Moscow Scientific and Industrial Association ‘Radon’.
Meanwhile, no clean-up operation is planned at another construction site, this time in the west of Moscow, despite locals’ widespread belief that there used to be a nuclear waste dump here. Authorities say this is nothing more than a city myth, but this ‘myth’ has witnesses.
“When I was nine we used to find different medical equipment, environmental suits and tools there. Then that area was sealed and a sign with a skull and crossbones was put up,” says local resident Tatyana Timofeeva.
The city's radiation controllers say they have measured only the surface of the land and did not go deeper underground.
In the meantime, the construction of a luxury apartment block worth millions of dollars is already underway.
And locals fear when so much money is involved their concerns about radiation could be buried.
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