000175744
 Page: 29    of 30
 FBIS Concatenated Daily Reports, 1990
 Document 12 of 12
 Classification:   UNCLASSIFIED       Status:       [STAY]
 Document Date:    16 Nov 90          Category:     [CAT]
 Report Type:      Daily Report       Report Date:
 Report Nuwber:    FBIS-SOV-90-222    UDC Nusber:
 Page   1
 Author(s):  S. Kuzmin:  "Explosion at Explosives Plant" ]
 Headline:  Further Details on Blast at Biysk Oleum Plant
 Source Line:  PM1611110190 Moscow KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA in Russian 16
 Nov 90 p 1
 Subslug:  [Report by S. Kuzmin:  "Explosion at Explosives Plant" ]
 FULL TBST OF ARTICLE:
 1.  [Report by S. Kuzmin:  "Explosion at Explosives Plant" ]
 2.  (Text] Biysk, Altay Kray--The explosion at the oleum plant
 disturbed all of Biysk. Especially since it is no secret even to
 small children in the city--oversaturated with  "hazardous "
 enterprises--that the oleum plant is a  "defense plant."  And now the
 shop producing explosives has  "gone up."  Passions were further
 roused by the municipal emergency commission, which categorically
 refused to report the details of the traged3~.---       --  --------
 3.  It was only after explanations given by the chairman of the
 government commission that the true scale of the tragedy began to
 emerges 11 workers, nine of them women, died and several people
 sustained serious injuries. Another victim has not been extricated
 from the wreckage. No one has yet calculated the material damage, but
 it will run into hundreds of thousands of rubles at least.
 4.  The reasons for the explosion are still unclear. Despite the fact
 that the workshop was in fact producing industrial explosives, mainly
 for mining work, they are not dangerous per se. Specialists had given
 assurances that nothing would happen even if these explosives were to
 be hit or broken to pieces with a hammer. It is only when the
 temperature exceeds 200 degrees....
 5.  The government commission states:  "Saboteurs and flying saucers
 have nothing to do with this. There was most likely a breach of
 technology somewhere. A chemical reaction may have begun in one of
 the units. Then the temperature rose."
 6.  Experts from the State Committee for Environmental Protection
 have made a most gratifying report: The accident will not have a
 harmful effect on the environmental situation in the city. I think
 that they are right; the situation in Biysk simply cannot be made
 3'~ ~
 Approved for Release
 ~- ~otQ
 -000175744
 Page: 30    of 30
 FBIS Concatenated Daily Reports, 1990
 Docuaent 12 of 12                                            Page   2
 worse now.  The people of Biysk have resigned themselves to the fact
 that their native industrial giants not only feed and clothe them and
 harm their children~s health, but also, it transpires, effectively
 hold them hostage.