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The cluster
of four villages in southern Ukraine was coping with searing
summer heat when the mysterious illness struck, creeping
from one house to another.
Hundreds
of people were soon complaining of symptoms that included
drowsiness, head and stomach pains, burning eyes and skin
rashes.
About
400 of the more than 2,600 village residents were hospitalized
in July and August. Doctors were unable to diagnose the
ailment, which also affected the livers and pancreases
of victims, saying only that it was apparently caused
by an unknown chemical agent.
But
some residents thought they knew the cause: rocket fuel
and debris from Soviet-era missiles that had been based
less than a mile from their homes in the villages of Boleslavchyk,
Pidhiria, Michuryno and Chausovo. They rejected the Defense
Ministry's denials, and suspected the military wasn't
interested in discovering the truth.
"It
must be something military, what else? But I have my remedy,"
said an elderly man named Mykola, fishing in a pond in
Boleslavchyk. He swallowed the last drops from a small
bottle of vodka.
Just
outside Boleslavchyk, a peaceful village of small white
houses, overgrown bushes conceal heaps of broken concrete
- the remains of a destroyed missile silo. The area once
held liquid-fuel nuclear missiles and still serves as
a base for solid-fuel SS-24s.
Ukraine
inherited 46 SS-24s and 130 SS-19 missiles from the Soviet
Union. Kiev has since surrendered all its nuclear warheads
to Russia and destroyed the SS-19s, while most of its
SS-24s along with their silos are to be destroyed under
a disarmament plan running through 2001.
Many
in Boleslavchyk maintain the health menace can be traced
to a farm where the Soviet army supposedly buried debris
while dismantling outdated missiles in the late 1970s.
Metal scavengers recently excavated an old pit there,
and some villagers swear they saw a strange cloud that
later swept over Boleslavchyk.
But
retired tractor driver Ivan Muliar was skeptical. He said
that plenty of people had worked at the farm for years
and never gotten sick, and the scavengers weren't among
the victims of the mysterious illness.
"Look,
those boys who dug out the metal did not get sick,"
argued Muliar. "There must be some other reason."
The
Defense Ministry adamantly denies the missiles or their
fuel could have caused the poisoning, and health experts
have backed off from their initial finding that the soil
and water contained traces of substances usually produced
by decomposing missile fuel.
The
region has a host of other environmental scourges, including
an ammonia pipeline and an abandoned nickel plant. Official
explanations for the poisoning range from excessive amounts
of nitrates presumably used in fertilizer to poisonous
fumes released by scavengers burning plastic insulation
off copper cables.
U.S.
experts from the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, an Israeli
medical team and Ukrainian investigative commission have
all visited the site. None could offer any conclusive
explanation and said full analysis would be costly and
time-consuming.
The
mystery could remain unsolved forever.
Yet
it has brought some good to the area 190 miles south of
the capital, Kiev, throwing a spotlight on its poverty
and environmental ills. Charities have sent food and clothes.
The government is building a running water supply and
has promised a pipeline network to provide household gas.
The
victims have recovered, the investigators have gone, and
life in the villages is returning to normal. Yet the residents
remain fearful.
"We
don't know what caused all this," said Oleksandra
Pochekha, the mayor of Boleslavchyk. "But we want
a clear answer.... Next year, spring will come, it will
be hot again and this could start all over again."
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