Hungarian Chemical Disaster

[Ttownbeast]

What's dangerous is fine silica powder. Once inhaled, it stays in the lungs, the same way asbestos fibers and (we'll hear about this in a couple years, trust me) carbon nanotubes do.

Foreign substances stuck in blood vessels can't be good. There is a direct link between asbestos/silica dust inhalation and lung cancer, proven by numerous studies.

Sounds likely to be a future contributor to good ol fashioned black lung disease as from coal mine dust just in a new industry perhaps they'll fins a similar effect from kevlar fibers to that of breathing in fiberglass as well.

on another note:
Concrete dust has a similar effect when the dust is breathed in too--everything will kill us even sawdust. Every time you cook food you are releasing vapors which can be considered carcinogenic we are told we cannot smoke in public places in a lot of regions but it is still ok to light up the BBQ or go to burger king where everything is run on propane or walk along the city streets breathing in automotive fumes of passing cars. Doctors offices and hospitals still expose us to limited radiation from lab equipment. Everything is a danger....you know what the Japanese did after we blew up two of their cities? They rebuilt them! Sure you cannot occupy the epicenters of the blast zones for more than a few hours due to concern for accumulated dosage but the near outskirts are considered habitable. Mt St Helens was thought immediately after the eruption to be a zone that wouldn't again be inhabitable for a thousand years but in the first ten years life came back. I bet we could occupy these disastrous regions such as Chernobyl, 3 mile island, and even this site outside Budapest again sooner than we think.

 

[AllieNeko]

I always come back and admit when I'm wrong. Technically I wasn't wrong about the not toxic. It isn't toxic, per se. So it still bugs me that the media is calling it toxic. But it is MUCH more corrosive than I'd realized. The first news report I read stated that the PH was around 8. Which is VERY slightly alkaline and might cause minor skin irritation with prolonged contact. I have since learned that number was incorrect and the real PH is 12-13 in different samples of the sludge. THAT is EXTREMELY corrosive and highly hazardous. It'll burn your skin right off of you.

Still, it is "just" corrosive and not toxic, which means that nature will manage to balance itself easier than if it was actually toxic. The acid rain thing, while I said it with a tone of sarcasm, was completely serious. Nature balances itself out much better than we realize.

 

[Epsilon88]

Insane. I hope there aren't long-term negative effects like Chernobyl.

 

[AllieNeko]

Epsilon,

Chernobyl was a worst-case nuclear meltdown. This is an accidental release of some non-toxic but highly-corrosive natural minerals extracted from nature back into nature in a concentrated form. A massive landslide of mud that included some corrosive minerals (the main one being quicklime which is about 15% of the mud).

The damage is that of a landslide. It's not radioactive. It's not poisonous. It is corrosive enough to cause damage until it gets diluted with a good dose of acid rain

Second, Chernobyl was a worst-case scenario, but it still wasn't that bad. The biggest cause of death from Chernobyl was the fact it ruined the reputation of nuclear power. And thus, we kept using coal. Chernobyl killed 31 people directly. A few thousand probably died from radiation exposure, but the number can't be pinned down. You can't prove the cause of any one cancer.

Thousands of coal miners die every year, and far more cancers come from the air pollution (including radioactive elements) given off by burning coal than Chernobyl caused.

The truth is even the long-term damage to land of Chernobyl has been greatly overstated. Much of the exclusion area is re-inhabitable now, but to do so would be politically unpopular.

 

[Ttownbeast]

The truth is even the long-term damage to land of Chernobyl has been greatly overstated. Much of the exclusion area is re-inhabitable now, but to do so would be politically unpopular.

Indeed, bet they are just waiting for the last known survivors to be long dead before it could be something more politically acceptable such as reclaim the land for industrial use.