World

3 Tons Of Cyanide-Laced Fish Seized

January 24, 2001 / 11:49 AM EST / AP

Health officials on Wednesday confiscated and burned hundreds of contaminated fish plucked by hungry Romanians from a river polluted by a cyanide spill.

Since the Jan. 18 spill in the Siret River, 72 people, including more than 50 children, have been hospitalized for gastritis and kidney problems after eating the fish. None is seriously ill.

Local officials have gone door-to-door in the town of Lepezi, some 210 miles northeast of Bucharest, confiscating and later burning the fish.

On Tuesday, 337 pounds of fish were destroyed, and by noon Wednesday another 220 pounds had been burned.

Some three tons of bad fish have been collected from the river and homes, said Dr. Nicolae Trinca, head of the health authority department in the northeastern city of Iasi.

"People are aware that they can get ill, but the fish is the only free food they have," said Trinca. "Many people have ignored the warnings, thinking, 'It won't happen to me.'"

The average monthly salary in Romania is only around $100, and the region where the spill occurred is one of the poorest: Unemployment is nearly double the national average of 11 percent.

Government officials claim the spill occurred during the cleaning of reservoirs at Metadet, a chemical-producing company that was fined just $800 for negligence but has gone bankrupt.

It was unclear how much of the chemical poured into the Siret, but environmental officials reported readings 128 times the accepted levels in the river and one of its tributaries.

Cyanide levels came down to less than half the initial levels after more water was released into the river.

Last year, about 169,000 cubic feet of cyanide-tainted water from a gold mine spilled into rivers in Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia, causing Europe's worst river pollution disaster in a decade.