2023-06-08 13:11:05
On June 7, an explosion occurred at the Svetlagor pulp and paperboard plant. According to preliminary information, at least three people died and four were injured.
According to the official version, on June 7, rescuers received reports of an explosion of a gas-air mixture without further combustion on the territory of the Svetlagor pulp and paperboard plant and went to the scene. This was reported by the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Belarus. During search and rescue operations, the remains of three people were found at the scene of the accident.
Svoboda’s source from Svetlagorsk claims that these were young people who were working on a shift at the time of the incident.
As the press service of the Ministry of Health reported, four more people (born in 1985-1996) were injured as a result of the explosion.
“All of them were diagnosed with superficial head wounds and superficial burns on their hands. Emergency medical teams helped them on the spot, the victims refused to be hospitalized,” the ministry’s press service reports.
“The explosion was heard in the village of Yakimava Slobada, which is adjacent to the plant. People were very scared,” said the source of Svoboda.
According to information from another source, “a vat with olive oil exploded.”
“The explosion was as if a bomb had fallen. By the way, that tank already exploded in 2020, when people died,” the source added.
This is far from the first tragic events at the Svetlogor enterprise, during its existence at least five people died there. We recall the history of the plant.
How it all began
For a long time, Belarus imported bleached pulp, which is an important raw material for paper production. They decided to set up their production of this substance on the basis of the Svetlagor pulp and paperboard plant.
In October 2010, the Belarusian authorities signed a contract with the Chinese company SAMSE for the construction of a sulfate bleached pulp plant. The government spent $850 million on the construction of the Svetlagorsky CCK, of which $654 million was borrowed from Chinese banks.
Accidents and deaths
In 2020, the plant has not yet reached full capacity, but several tragic incidents happened there at once. On July 30, an accident occurred during which two workers were injured. One of them is a qualified welder Aleksey Sosnovskysoon died.
On October 19 of the same year, an explosion occurred at the plant and a fire started. Another welder died as a result of the accident. Alexander Rusinovich.
On January 16, 2021, two workers were poisoned by chlorine at the plant, both ended up in the hospital.
In 2022, there was a fire at the plant, burning waste wood chips and sawdust.
Thus, taking into account all the incidents, at least five people died at the plant, about ten received various injuries.
Hundreds of complaints and no response
Since 2017, local residents began to complain about the stench from the plant and bad health from the dirty air.
“Inhaling the polluted air coming from the bleached pulp plant since the end of 2017,” local residents described the situation, “we feel unwell, sore throat, headache, nosebleeds, nausea, allergies, fatigue. In addition to the stench, we observe how some liquid chemicals are dumped into the Berezina River through the old industrial channel of the Khimvalakno enterprise, which is evidenced by the storm-black color of the water and a large amount of dirty-gray foam and dead fish.”
In Svetlagorsk, an environmental initiative group was formed on this occasion, which dealt with the problems of the plant. Head of the initiative group, human rights defender Alena Maslyukova says that they have written more than a hundred complaints to officials.
“There are hundreds of appeals, we received unsubscribes from state institutions. We went to see the Minister of Natural Resources, the chief sanitary doctor, and the chairman of Bellespaperopram concern, Nazarov. Our environmental team has done a lot to minimize harmful emissions. We said that the consequences would be bad, and it turned out that way,” says Alena Maslyukova.
Local residents feel the stench from the plant even now, the last incident was shortly before the accident on June 7, Maslyukova claims.
“People still tell me about such cases. The last emissions were in the evening and at night on June 6, on the eve of the explosion,” says the human rights activist.
Financial “successes”
In 2016, Svetlogorsk CCC entered the top ten most unprofitable companies in the country, taking second place (Gomselmash was first).
The net losses of the Svetlagor CCC for 2018 amounted to 206,795,700 rubles and increased four times compared to 2017.
Chinese investors left the plant in 2019. The reasons were cited as late construction, violation of building regulations, facts of delivery of defective equipment. As a result, Chinese contractors refused to put the plant into operation. The contract was canceled, and the Belarusians had to bring the plant to order.
By September 2019, it turned out that the methodology for measuring harmful emissions had not been developed for the plant. In 2020, it was put into operation, but the company never reached the project capacity that was promised back in 2015. It does not work at full capacity even now.
The plant’s net losses for 2020 are 72 million rubles.
The last is financial and economic report from the Svetlagor pulp and paperboard plant dates back to 2021. According to her, the plant in 2021 had a profit of 9 million rubles with long-term debts of 2.3 billion rubles and uncovered losses of 517 million.
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