An explosion at a nuclear fuel processing plant in the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan this month may have contaminated 120,000 people, a local environmental official said today. Rishat Adamov, chairman of eastern Kazakhstan's Regional Committee on Environmental Protection, said 60,000 people demonstrated on Thursday in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk to demand that the plant there be closed. ''It's a bomb in the center of the city,'' Mr. Adamov said in a telephone interview from Ust-Kamenogorsk, 2,000 miles east of Moscow, where the explosion on Sept. 12 released toxic beryllium oxide gas into the atmosphere.
Medical experts in Moscow said exposure to beryllium, a metal widely used in the nuclear and aerospace industries, could lead to lung problems resulting in breathing difficulties, coughing and spitting of blood. There might also be eye and skin problems. While they could be fatal in extreme cases, most symptoms should clear up in six months, said the experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''There is no medicine to treat this effectively,'' one doctor added.
President Nursultan A. Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan called on the Soviet Government to provide compensation for health damage in the region.
Source: New York Times
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