Serbian Town Bombed by NATO Fears Effects of Toxic Chemicals

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July 14, 1999, Section A, Page 1Buy Reprints
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On the edge of town, in a sprawling industrial park that held an oil refinery, a petrochemical plant and a fertilizer factory, lie the twisted pipes, scorched storage tanks, crumbled roofs and jagged detritus left by NATO bombs.

Yet it is not these ruined factories that are the worst scourges of war in this river town, many people here say, but the tons of toxic material that poured out of them.

Farm workers, plunging their fingers into the earth, say they come away with rashes that burn and blister. Those who eat the river fish and vegetables or drink the tap water, which trickles out of faucets because of the damage to the purification plant, come down with diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramps.

Children, many of whom were sent away to Slovakia by local Red Cross officials for several weeks to escape the clouds of noxious gasses that hovered for days over Pancevo, still suffer headaches and dizziness. The war's lingering, ghoulish touch could be affecting even the unborn. There are twice as many miscarriages as there were during the comparable period last year, doctors here say.

There is no independent assessment of the medical effects of the exposure to chemicals that the bombing caused. The scientific studies conducted by the Yugoslavs in Pancevo, by their own admission, have been carried out with outdated methods and inferior, antiquated equipment.

The results of such testing, said Dr. Predrag S. Polic, the chemist who conducted many of the tests, are three or four weeks away.

The United Nations Environment Program has formed a Balkans Task Force, headed by Pakka Haavisto, who was the Environment Minister of Finland.

The task force will send a team of international experts to Pancevo, and about half a dozen other damaged industrial sites, next Tuesday to take air, water and soil samples for three or four weeks. It expects to publish its findings and make recommendations in September.

''The most dangerous moment probably occurred during the fires, when the smoke was in the air,'' said Mr. Haavisto, who briefly visited Pancevo two weeks ago and was reached by phone in Geneva. ''A large amount of chemicals burned during this time. It remains unclear how much is in the soil, but when you walk in Pancevo you can smell chemical substances.

''The biggest danger now is that the ground water and the Danube have been directly polluted, something that will affect the drinking water. There are towns in Romania and Bulgaria that use the Danube for drinking water. In my estimation the most damaged sites will need a cleaning process, as in places where the soil and water have been contaminated with toxic materials, before we can talk about rebuilding.''

Government officials, doctors and residents in the town report a surge of unexplained symptoms.

''The effects of the bombing on these industrial sites have been enormous,'' said Simon Bancov, the Government health inspector for the region. ''More than 100,000 tons of carcinogenics were unleashed into the air, the water and the soil. The produce is not safe to eat. The long-term damage to the water table and riverbeds is severe. People complain constantly of stomach pain but have no viral or bacterial symptoms. We have all been poisoned.''

The repeated air strikes on the industrial complex, which covers several acres, culminated in three huge hits at 1 A.M. on April 18. The bombs sent fireballs into the air and enveloped Pancevo in clouds of black smoke and milky white gases. Flames leapt from the site for 10 days.

The air strikes unleashed tons of chemicals into the air and water.

An estimated 1,500 tons of vinyl chloride, the building block of a type of plastic, 3,000 times higher than permitted levels, burned into the air or poured into the soil and river, said municipal officials in Pancevo, which is controlled by opposition parties hostile to President Slobodan Milosevic.

The chemical, which has left the banks of the river edged with white foam, still clogs the canals around the town. Huge quantities of other noxious chemicals burned or gushed out of storage tanks, said town officials and Yugoslav scientists.

Those chemicals included an estimated 15,000 tons of ammonia, used to make fertilizer; 800 tons of hydrochloric acid and 250 tons of liquid chlorine, used for several industrial products; vast quantities of dioxin, a component of Agent Orange and other defoliants, and 100 tons of mercury, the officials said.

By dawn after the night of the attack, dozens of people were hospitalized gasping for air, struggling to see and unable to digest food, witnesses said.

The sun was blotted out for nearly a day as people moved with rags over their noses and mouths through the fog.

NATO officials, reached by phone in Mons, Belgium, said the industrial site had been a key target in the drive to deny fuel and other resources to the Yugoslav Army.

''NATO had two types of targets,'' said a NATO spokeswoman. ''There were tactical and strategic targets. The oil refinery in Pancevo was considered a strategic target. It was a key installation that provided petrol and other elements to support the Yugoslav Army. By cutting off these supplies we denied crucial material to the Serbian forces fighting in Kosovo.''

The official said the environmental damage caused by the attack had been taken into consideration.

''When targeting is done we take into account all possible collateral damage,'' she said, ''be it environmental, human or to the civilian infrastructure. Pancevo was considered to be a very, very important refinery and strategic target, as important as tactical targets inside Kosovo.''

Three months later, anxious families are coping with illnesses no one seems able to explain. Mothers, clutching the hands of small children, along with people whose bodies are covered in rashes, clog the small waiting rooms of local doctors hoping for explanations and treatment.

The doctors say there is little they can do but wait to see if the exposure leads to cancer, blood contamination and serious respiratory ailments.

Chemical exposure can produce immediate and longer-term effects, causing different kinds of damage to the body, experts say. Some may be clear to the eye and painful, but other effects could be silent and only show up years later.

It is difficult to pinpoint the cause of the symptoms that people in Pancevo report without scientific tests. Neither Dr. Polic nor officials of the United Nations Environment Program said they were ready to speculate on the possible health risks.

''What can we tell people?'' said Dr. Dobrosav Pavlovic, a gynecologist. ''We have not advised expectant mothers to have abortions, but we are seeing more and more miscarriages.

''I can't say how much the bombing has contributed to this increase. I can't say what the results of the bombing will be over the long term. It will be over a year, when we can begin to look for birth defects and can detect serious illnesses, that we will start to understand what has happened.''

The bombing left most of the 8,761 people who worked in the plants, 10 miles northwest of Belgrade, out of work. The Government, which was months late with salaries before the bombing, has reduced incomes from $100 to $15 a month until the factories are repaired, something workers say will never happen without foreign investment. The damage is estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Three United States companies and a German company built the petrochemical plant, used to make plastics, in 1978. Two American corporations and a French concern constructed the oil refinery in 1969. The fertilizer plant, which began operation in 1958, was a joint venture by companies from the United States, Spain and the Netherlands.

The loss of income in the town has made it difficult for those who would like to move or take precautions against the pollutants. There is now 70 percent unemployment.

''My son and I have constant headaches,'' said Radmila Vukelic, 52. ''We feel dizzy, as if we were going to faint. No one has told us anything. We have no information about what has happened or what we should do.

''I do not eat the fish from the river. I am afraid. We would like to eat frozen or canned vegetables, but we do not have this kind of money. We must eat what is in the markets.''

Srdjan Mikovic, 38, the Mayor of Pancevo, said he was bewildered by the extent of the air strikes, especially since his town of 130,000, with a mixture of people of Hungarian and Croatian ancestry, has long been one of the centers of the opposition.

It is one of the few places in Serbia where the radio and television stations are free from party control, either by Mr. Milosevic's ruling Socialists or the parties that oppose him.

''We have heard nothing from the Government,'' the Mayor said. ''We have never supported the regime, and for this reason I fear we will be sacrificed.

''NATO had to understand what they were doing to us, because these factories were built by American and European firms. They could not have been ignorant of the environmental damage. I have given up. I eat the fish. How much more can I be poisoned after living in clouds of this stuff?''

Pancevo was once a frontier town, manned by Hungarian, Serbian and Austrian soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian empire. The pink facade of the former imperial army barracks lies in the center of Pancevo. It was from here that the European troops faced the Ottoman Turks across the river from 1716, when Vienna captured Pancevo, until the end of World War I.

The buildings, although in bad repair, look as if they were lifted from Austria, with stuccoed block exteriors, onion domed towers, arched windows and delicate wrought iron staircases.

This part of Serbia has never embraced Mr. Milosevic's nationalist movement.

Pancevo played host to a women's water polo tournament last year, and the American swimmers won. The spectators cheered the athletes as ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' was played during the awards ceremony.

''The bombing has changed how we feel about the outside world,'' Mr. Mikovic said. ''People have lost their desire to fight, to reach out. They only want to survive. The Americans can come back, but they will not have any applause from us.''