An orange cloud of nitrous gases rose into the air in the village Horodok, in Rivne Oblast, due to an accident at the Rivneazot chemical plant.
The accident took place at nearly 4.50 p.m. on July 20.
According to preliminary information, the accident occurred because the material of the pipeline didn’t meet requirements or either due to the corrosion of the pipeline, Denys Monastyrsky, Ukraine’s interior minister, said.
Within a half an hour the leakage was liquidated. No one was hurt, officials reported.
According to the Ministry of health, emissions from the accident do not pose any risks to people or the environment. The concentration of hazardous substances in air is almost 10 times less than the maximum limit allowed, the ministry wrote on Facebook.
“We have confirmed that all indicators are within normal limits. The wind went in a north-easterly direction and the cloud didn’t go to Rivne,” Vitalii Koval, the head of the oblast administration, said.
The local services keep monitoring the quality of air.
Local hospitals have prepared 70 intensive detoxification beds to treat people who may have suffered from the accident, but no one has come with any related symptoms, the Ministry of Health reported.
However, weather forecasters warn that since the nitrogen hit the atmosphere and there is a chance of an acid rain. Experts recommend not to walk under the rain without umbrellas.
Natalia Kholodova, chairperson of the board at the non-governmental organization Ecoclub Rivne, told to the Kyiv Post that “nitric acid irritates the respiratory tract and in severe cases can be fatal.”
However, she added that while “it looks like we managed to avoid a catastrophe this time, the situation showed that protection by the state from these types of accidents is not working well.”
She insists on the installation of an air quality monitoring system in the village of Horodok so that citizens can monitor air safety by themselves.
Rivneazot is one of the largest chemical enterprises in Western Ukraine. It belongs to the holding Ostchem, owned by the Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash.
