Delfi and fires. The top 5 largest environmental disasters of the year in Ukraine have been named
This year, the capital entered the top five megacities with the dirtiest air
In October of this year, Kyiv, along with Delhi and Mumbai (India), Lahore (Pakistan), and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), entered the top of the list of megacities with the dirtiest air. The city remains on this list until the end of 2020. This was reported on Facebook by the former head of the permanent commission of the Kyiv City Council on environmental policy, Kostyantyn Yalovy, referring to his own list of the largest environmental disasters in Ukraine in 2020.
The entire top 5 environmental problems are as follows:
- Massive fires in various parts of the Luhansk region this autumn - the fire covered 20 thousand hectares, 32 settlements, and destroyed 600 residential buildings. 11 people died in the fire, and 18 were hospitalized. One of the versions of the causes of the fire is arson by illegal armed groups. At the same time, law enforcement officers are still investigating. Another fire in the region occurred in July. Then 6 people died and a tenth of all forests in the region burned out.
- The tanker Delfi near "Dolphin" beach - it was torn from its anchor due to a storm in the Odesa Bay last November. The wind carried the damaged vessel to the coast of Odesa beach, where it lay for 10 months. All this time, experts reported emissions of fuel and oil products that spilled near the coast of Odesa. Delfi was removed in September 2020.
- The flood in the west of the country in June, which was recognized as the largest in the last 60 years - five regions suffered from floods. Then the Carpathian rivers overflowed due to heavy rains. In Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lviv, Zakarpattia, and Ternopil regions, 285 settlements and almost 15 thousand houses were flooded in three days. The disaster destroyed more than 150 km of roads and 90 bridges. Among the causes of the disaster are illegal logging and pollution of rivers with household waste.
- Air pollution in Kyiv - according to the Iqair portal, the capital of Ukraine was among the top five leaders in this indicator. The main source of pollution is cars. This problem arose because for the last 30 years, construction work has been carried out in the city without taking into account environmental requirements, the politician noted.
- Fires in the exclusion zone of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in early April due to grass burning - the fire covered more than 67 thousand hectares. As a result, about 5% of the reserve's territory was affected. The active phase of the fire was overcome in 10 days, and completely extinguished in almost a month. 1322 people and almost 300 units of equipment fought the elements. After that, MPs adopted a law that increased fines for grass burning by 18 times.
We remind you that the head of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Roman Abramovsky, announced that fines in the environmental sphere in Ukraine may significantly increase.
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