Environmental Costs of Bombing in Yugoslavia

Back to Map Page August, 1999 Pancevo, Yugoslavia The great human and economic costs of wars are well understood and widely reported, but environmental damages are frequently disregarded by international media. This year in July a United Nations inspection team visited Yugoslavia to evaluate environmental consequences of the NATO bombing campaign there earlier this year. The team found a number of sites with serious chemical contamination. An industrial district in the town of Pancevo, 10 miles north of Belgrade, was the worst, according to the UN report. Many of the sites bombed in Belgrade released pollution into the Danube River. Before the NATO bomging campaign began, Pancevo had 14 industrial chemical facilities and power plants, including an oil refinery, a petrochemical plant, and a fertilizer plant that stored and processed ammonia. A series of bombing raids in mid-April hit these and other facilities, releasing hundreds of tons of toxins into the air, water, and soil. Clouds of smoke from thousands of tons of burning petroleum products choked Pancevo for more than a week and then drifted down wind toward Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Ukraine. Toxic and carcinogenic plastic-making components were also vaporized. Thousands of tons of ethylene dichloride, caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, and vinyl chloride were among the contaminants released, as well as mercury and nitric acid. Many of these soaked into the soil, contaminating the ground and gradually evaporating to add to the air pollution. Traces of phosgene gas, an odorless gas used in World War I, were also detected. Water pollution was made worse when plant officials emptied 20,000 tons of ammonia into a tributary of the Danube, in an effort to avoid releasing the ammonia into the air should storage tanks explode in the bombing. This and other contaminants have now entered the ecosystem and food chain of the Danube, and of the Black Sea into which it flows. Residents of Pancevo suffered blisters and vomiting immediately after the bombing. Since then they have continued to rely on contaminated vegetable gardens and fish because they have few other food sources. The need for environmental cleanup is well understood, but scarce resources are first going to finding food and shelter before winter comes. Cleanup efforts are complicated because nobody clearly knows how much of the contamination now on the ground and in the rivers results from the bombing and how much existed previously, the result of industrial spills, emissions, and accidents unrelated to the war. It is clear that the area was polluted earlier, and it is also clear that the bombing released tremendous volumes of toxic chemicals. Identifying the causes and the extent of the environmental damage will be an enormously complex undertaking as money becomes available. Long range health problems, including cancer, are also anticipated, although once again disentangling illness due to bombing from illness due to long exposure will be difficult. To read more, see Environmental Science, A Global Concern, Cunningham and Saigo, 5th ed. Hazardous and toxic wastes: p. 525 Water pollution: p. 435-37 Environmental Science, a Study of Interrelationships, Enger and Smith, 7th ed. Water use and pollution in industrialized and developing countries: p. 289 Hazardous and toxic materials: p. 375-78 Toxic chemical releases: p. 380 For further information, see these related web sites: Report from the European Commission Article on water contamination from the Environment News Service Back to Map Page feedback form | permissions | international | locate your campus rep | request a review copy digital solutions | publish with us | customer service | mhhe home Copyright ©2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of the The McGraw-Hill Companies.