Environmental Disaster in Padar Village

Head of the civilian control Network of NGOs, Aliman Mammadov, spoke about the situation with the chemical compound phenol in the village of Padar, in Hajigabul region. According to him, the situation is catastrophic.

It all started in 1986 when there was a train wreck in the village, and a tank with phenol toppled over.  Then later the tank with the phenol was buried. For some time there were no problems. However, two months ago, the smell of phenol was noticed in the village, and the Ministry of Environment was notified. Representatives of the Ministry inspected the soil and revealed that because of the tank’s corrosion, phenol had leaked into the soil. In order clean the phenol from the soil, the polluted soil should be removed and replaced with clean soil. The Ministry gave the answer on how to clean the soil, but did not take any measures to address the consequences.

According to Aliman Mammadov, the smell of phenol is very noticeable even with a low breeze, it strongly affects the well-being of people. According to him, one man has recently died in the village from  phenol poisoning. Phenol affects the respiratory system and leads to suffocation. There have been cases of poisoning, vomiting, dizziness, and heart attacks among the people who live close to the site of the accident, especially among schoolchildren.

Network representatives have visited the village and asked the public to appeal to the president   with request to resolve the matter, but people did not agree. In addition, representatives of the Network were not able to meet with members of the executive and the municipal authorities. -05B04-