Balkan Chernobyl too close to us: Fumes from long-closed mine are killing everything on Serbian border (PHOTO)

Several thousand tons of tailings, containing high concentrations of arsenic from a long-closed mine of chromium and antimony, has been poisoning and killing the inhabitants of the Macedonian village of Tabanovce for decades, known for being located on the border with Serbia.  

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Wild dumps with arsenic is the site of the former smelting ore in the immediate vicinity of the railway station Tabanovci, left without protection and control of state institutions after closing in the seventies.

- Locals of the Tabanovce village have been facing this problem for over 40 years. Arsenic is everywhere. Groundwater is contaminated, and foul smell is spreading the air. The river is going by the dump and it carries all that poison and chemicals to the village. 90% of the wells are contaminated because of that, and we are powerless to do anything, complained Toni Petrovic, president of the local community to the reporters of the Skopje portal "Sakamdakazam".

According to the estimate of the locals, the landfill has over 100 trucks of toxic waste in underground pits and on the surface.

There was even more of it before, but winds and heavy showers washed most of it. Now, everybody is afraid for their family and children because high concentration of arsenic causes skin, lungs, liver and lymph glands cancer. That is why they call the landfill Macedonian Chernobyl.

Foto: sdk.mk

- No one has died of natural causes in the last 15-20 years in the village. They all died to cancer. When someone gets sick, 2-3 months and there is no help for him. If you stay near the waste with arsenic, you are immediately sick, and if you skin gets in contact with it you get blisters and dark spots, said Petrovic.

The area around hazardous waste landfill resembles a desert with destroyed vegetation and dead birds, like in a horror movie.

Orange color is dominant on the surface of the ground, and the one that is not colored is gray and dead.

Foto: sdk.mk

The presence of a strong poisons destroyed everything around it, and strong and unbearable smell spreads from the tailings pond which burns your throat and stings the eyes.

The nature has lost the battle with against this dangerous material and lack of care.

Tailings from the closed mine and the landfill near Tabanovce is one of nine black spots in Macedonia and on Balkans, because according to the research, it contains 50 times more waste from the allowed limits.

Due to the enormous contamination of the ground and water, locals of the village Tabanovci don't work on their crops and don't take their livestock to the pasture on local meadows.

(Telegraf.co.uk / D.J.)