Authorities in Kyrgyzstan take two days to inform public truck carrying uranium waste fell into ravine

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan took two days to make public an accident in which a truck transporting uranium waste fell from a bridge into a ravine, according to a June 18 report from Nuclear Engineering International.

A statement from the emergencies ministry was issued when video footage from the accident scene started circulating on social networks. Officials said that at the time of the crash the truck was empty.

“Nothing hit the water. However, water and soil samples were taken and sent for inspection. When the level of radiation was measured on the spot, no danger was found. Therefore, citizens have no cause for concern,” the press service of the ministry said.

However, a photograph and video taken after the accident by locals shows soil pouring out of the truck, according to the specialist journal, adding that it also shows an excavator moving the spilled soil to another truck.

The accident, in early June, involved a truck transporting uranium waste from the Tuyuk-Suu storage facility. It fell into a ravine near a river in the village of Min-Kush in Jumgal District of the eastern Naryn Region.

The natural resources, ecology & technical control ministry stated that it set up a commission to measure background radiation at the site and that the measurements were normal.

Despite the official statements, anxieties that uranium from the truck could get into the river have not dissolved.

Lawmaker Mirlan Svkojo was reported by Nuclear Engineering International as asking Deputy Minister of Natural Resources, Ecology & Technical Supervision Medetbek Mammetov at a meeting of a parliamentary committee what measures were taken and what possible consequences there could be for localities in Central Asia. “You yourself say that KamAZ was transporting uranium. The truck fell into the water, uranium hit the water. This water goes to Central Asia. You know what the situation is in Min-Kush,” Svkojo was cited as saying.

The deputy minister responded that a commission was investigating.

The Min-Kush uranium legacy site has been remediated by the Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia (ERA), managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It is now dealing with other former Soviet sites in Kyrgyzstan.

In April, bne IntelliNews reported how possible Chernobyl-scale nuclear ruination threatens the fertile Fergana valley shared by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as Soviet-built dams holding vast amounts of uranium mine tailings that sit above the region are seen as unstable. If the dams collapse, perhaps as a result of an earthquake, the spillage of the tailings would make the vicinity uninhabitable.

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament last week approved a bill to allow the development of uranium and thorium deposits in the republic, reversing a prohibition on such mining brought in five years following protests over environmental impacts. The authorities have pledged to use new technologies that, they say, will mean almost no negative impact on the environment from mining activities.

The country's Japarov administration is considering commissioning Russia's Rosatom to build a small modular reactor (SMR) to create the country's first nuclear power station.