JEWISH AGENCY READIES MINSK AIRLIFT THE JERUSALEM POST 19

1929 POLISH BUSINESS DIRECTORY PROJECT KSIEGA ADRESOWA POLSKI JEWISH
AND THE CHILDREN WERE SAVED … THE LITTLE JEWISH
CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS AGAINST GERMANY INC GRANT

DOCTORAL DISSERTATION ON JEWISH GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH IN POLAND MATERIAŁY
EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT JEWISH THIS IS REALLY
HISTORY 282JWST 234 HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE I

Russian Federation: 800 Hectares of Forest on Fire in Chernobyl-Contaminated Zone

Jewish Agency readies Minsk airlift

The Jerusalem Post

19 May 2000

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/05/19/News/News.6913.html


By Haim Shapiro


JERUSALEM (19 May 2000) - Following reports of extremely high radiation levels in Minsk, the Jewish Agency last night went on stand-by with contingency plans to airlift the entire Jewish population of the city and countryside.


Israel evacuated its embassy in Belarus and sent its staff home to Jerusalem for medical checks yesterday over fears of radioactivity borne by forest fires near the Chernobyl power station.


According to Jewish Agency Treasurer Chaim Chesler, there are some 32,000 Jews and members of Jewish families with the right to immigrate to Israel according to the Law of Return in Belarus, of whom 250 already have visas for Israel. Since January, some 650 have come on aliya.


According to a source, the entire staff of the Japanese Embassy also has been evacuated from the city.


Chesler and Jewish Agency Director-General Aharon Abromovich have ordered the lone Jewish Agency emissary in Minsk, Baruch Kancil, to remain in the city, in case he is needed for a possible mass evacuation. Other Jewish Agency emissaries from nearby areas have also been alerted that they may have to go to Minsk to help in the operation.


"I'm sure that if we need to, we can do it. Minsk is a big city and it has the facilities," Chesler said, when asked if the agency would be able to carry out a mass airlift.


Reuters adds: The Belarussian government insisted that fires raging across peat bogs polluted by fallout from the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl, just over the border in Ukraine, pose no threat. A senior US official said on Wednesday that the fires had stirred up radioactive elements left in the environment by Chernobyl and raised radiation levels downwind in Belarus.


Belarussian Emergencies Minister Valery Astapov announced: "I officially confirm there is no threat to either local citizens or diplomats. The situation is within normal limits. Allegations of high radioactivity are either a provocation or nonsense."

He said small increases in radiation had been noted in rural districts adjoining Chernobyl, but added: "These changes are so minimal that they cannot even be detected by satellites. They have no impact on the general level."




800 Hectares of Forest on Fire in Chernobyl-Contaminated Zone

Source: Agence France Presse, 19 July 2002

http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/media/news_20020719_ru.htm


Belarus -- Eight hundred hectares of forest and peat were on fire Friday in an area of Belarus contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Belarussian media reported.


The ex-Soviet republic's emergency ministry Valery Astapov appeared on national television to assure the population that the situation was not dangerous. "No rise in radioactivity levels has been observed in the villages near the fires," he said.


The minister added that 1,000 men and 150 vehicles were taking part in efforts to contain the blazes.The authorities in Belarus blamed the military, who delayed asking for help while they struggled to extinguish the fires which began near the Poleski testing range in the south of the country.


The drought and searing heat, with temperatures of 38 degrees Centigrade (100 degrees Fahrenheit), contributed to the spread of the forest fires.


A reactor in the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine exploded in April 1986, which contaminated large areas in the north of the country along with stretches of Belarus and Russia. Between 15,000 and 30,000 have died since the disaster in 1986 and nearly six million people continue to live in contaminated zones, according to UN figures.


Ukraine closed down the fourth and last reactor of the Chernobyl power plant in December 2000.



Belarus: Health Risks Uncertain As Wildfires Burn In Chornobyl Zones

From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty:

19 July 2002

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/07/19072002150631.asp

By Valentinas Mite


Dry weather and human carelessness have resulted in dozens of wildfires in the region of Belarus most affected by the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster. The Belarusian Emergency Situations Ministry admitted the fires have elevated radiation levels in the area, but have not said what threat, if any, the rise poses to residents in the region.


Prague, 19 July 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Hundreds of hectares of forestland and peat bogs are burning in the Belarusian regions of Homel, Brest, and Mahileu. In 1986, all three of these regions absorbed much of the radioactive fallout of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. A 1,700-square-kilometer plot of land in Homel remains fenced off to this day, and a number of villages in Brest and Mahileu have been permanently evacuated.


Scientists in Belarus say the country received 70 percent of the nuclear fallout from the accident. Much of the radiation accumulated in Belarusian forestland, and ecologists warn that wildfires can raise the radiation levels. State authorities, however, say the region has experienced far worse fires in recent years, and that the current wildfires pose no serious risk.


Anatol Hatoushys is a local free-lance journalist based in Homel. He said there are severe wildfires burning in the Yelchinskii and Stolinskii raions located between the Homel and Brest regions. He said that more than 1,000 hectares of forestland and peat bogs were burning this week. Some 4,000 people are working to try to put out the fires. "Half of Yelchinskii Raion is covered with smoke and it is bad for people. The people are very afraid," Hatoushys said.


A monthlong drought and high temperatures have created the possibility for even more fires to break out in coming days. Hatoushys said people fear radiation levels are rising but that there is no credible information coming from the state on the affect of the fires on the radiation zones. In some areas, uncertainty is so great that many people have opted to stay indoors as much as possible, their windows tightly sealed against the smoke.


Hatoushys said there have been fires in Homel's evacuated safety zone. "There were fires in the zone. In the beginning of the summer there was a fire in a part of the zone near Choiniki, when the village of Kazuchki burned down," Hatoushys said.

Ilona Ivanova is a free-lance journalist based in Mahileu, another region affected by the fires. Ivanova said there are many areas in Mahileu that were evacuated in 1986 because of high radiation. In Karsnopolskii, the most contaminated of Mahileu's districts, dozens of hectares of grassland and forests have already been devastated by the wildfires.


Ivanova said local authorities say firefighters in the region have already extinguished more than 500 fires. Despite warnings from officials to avoid high-radiation forests hit by this summer's fires, many Mahileu residents continue to go to the forests to pick berries and mushrooms. She said people living in the Mahileu region understand the dangers of radioactivity but are tired of being afraid. "You see, during those years after the Chornobyl disaster, people living in the contaminated regions got used to it and now they don't pay any attention to it," Ivanova said.


State authorities say everything is being done to stop the spread of the fires. Kiril Danilov is a senior inspector in the department of propaganda and training in the Emergency Situations Ministry. He told RFE/RL there has been no increase in radiation levels in the towns near the wildfires, and that a number of the larger fires in the Homel region have been put out in the past several days. He added that this year's fires are not as serious as a series of wildfires that broke out in the region two years ago, when the smell of smoke reached as far away as the capital Minsk, some 400 kilometers from Homel.


Ecologists admit the fires are not as severe as those two years ago but say they are dangerous nonetheless. Vladimir Chuprov of the Russian branch of the Greenpeace environmental group told RFE/RL that every wildfire in the contaminated areas poses a threat. "It is dangerous. The forests absorbed the radioactive elements released during the Chornobyl accident. These include the most dangerous ones: cesium and strontium. [The trees] absorb radioactive elements, and any wildfire will release these radioactive elements," Chuprov said.


Chuprov said the firefighters face the biggest danger because strontium and cesium are both easily inhaled. He said the wind can carry radioactive elements distances of 40 or 50 kilometers and put even people living far from the fires at risk.




HYPOTHERMIA AFTER CARDIAC ARREST A MANUAL FOR BARNESJEWISH HOSPITAL
JEWISH AGENCY READIES MINSK AIRLIFT THE JERUSALEM POST 19
JEWISH GENEALOGY RESOURCES OUR LIBRARY NOW HAS A JEWISH


Tags: agency readies, the agency, jerusalem, jewish, agency, airlift, readies, minsk