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スペインのアスツリア地方のAviles市のSan Juan de Nieva街の亜鉛工場で(Asturiana de Zinc)百数十人の労働者が水銀中毒、血液1L当り632 micrograms (限度は15microgramos)
Víctimas del mercurio
Asturias investiga la mayor intoxicación por este metal pesado ocurrida en España
Cerca de un centenar de obreros de una fábrica de zinc en Avilés están afectados
Elena G. Sevillano Avilés 17 MAR 2013 - 23:11 CET
Victims of mercury
Asturias investigates most heavy metal poisoning that occurred in Spain
About a hundred factory workers in Avilés zinc are affected
Ellen Sevillano Aviles 17 MAR 2013 - 23:11 CET
Carlos Martinez, first official erector, 46, has spent half his life put in boilers, silos acid, cement, cooking ovens of coming out "as a Watusi" ... And never, he says, had worked in an environment like which met in late November in the Asturian Zinc factory in San Juan de Nieva, near the estuary of Avilés. He was hired, along with fifty other workers, the company Northern Engineering S. Mounts A. (IMSA), to work in a stop at the third factory that produces more zinc in the world. Despite the mask, that air "chewed" he recalls. On December 2, after two weeks of work, he entered the hospital emergency de Avilés. Acute poisoning by mercury and zinc, reads his discharge report.
From his bed in the ICU, with a swollen face, "lymph as nuts", nausea and diarrhea, recognized the voice of his companion Laureano. Then came knew more. All have similar symptoms. Poisoning initially affected workers fifty Imsa, who participated in the exchanger repair roasting plant No. 4 Zinc Asturian. After blood tests began mass, both employees of the company, has more than 800 - and those of the 18 subcontractors who worked on the scheduled stop. Over thirty people have been giving positive, some jobs away from the original focus buildings. The medical report says Martinez to reach emergency found him 632 micrograms of mercury per liter of blood. The limit is 15.
"The atmosphere was very charged"
Carlos Martinez, left, and David Pelaez, two affected. / Paco walls
"The atmosphere was always very full," says David Pelaez, 36, one of the workers who participated in Imsa technical stop Asturiana de Zinc. "He came home burst, and it was not the usual physical fatigue. I changed the character was always bad host. I had trouble sleeping, and I still can not. I have noticed tearing and punctures on the right side. " Is still low, but his case was not the most serious between mercury toxicity. He did not enter the hospital, but their analysis showed 249 micrograms per liter in the blood of this heavy metal.
"The term 'normal' is relative," says Fernando Carreras, Deputy Director of Environmental and Occupational Health, Ministry of Health. "According to WHO, the standard value in blood is 10 micrograms, but not defined a level at which symptoms appear," he adds. Distinguish between acute intoxication, such as workers who have suffered Aviles, very unusual, and the chronicle: "Mercury builds up gradually and affects the central nervous system. There irreversible neuronal symptoms, "he explains.
In acute poisoning, like that Pelaez and her partner suffered Carlos Martinez, there are mouth ulcers, diarrhea, colitis, bleeding gums ... Although exposure is short, can also cause serious damage, for example in the renal function.
The figures vary by department concerned of the Government of Asturias in which you ask. And it is useless in Asturian Zinc, which claims still under investigation and considered "irresponsible" to speculate. The truth is it's been three and a half months of the experts believe that most mercury poisoning recorded in Spain and probably in Europe. A time that has been growing unease of some residents whose homes abut the factory almost. After this time, remains unknown what happened at the roasting plant number 4. Why was there this mercury?
Imsa operators have the task to replace more than 3,000 one steel pipe exchangers of the plant. We had to cut them with radial and place the new, all within a kind of hermetic silo that opened for repair. Imsa itself had done the same job before in other plants. In the roasting step, the raw material, zinc sulfide, becomes an impure zinc oxide, called calcine, applying hot air at 900 degrees. In the process also generates sulfur dioxide, used to make sulfuric acid, a byproduct Asturian Zinc (AZSA) sells his neighbor in the estuary Chemastur, which produces fertilizer. Another byproduct is mercury. The company had detected a few months before the crash of mercury pollution in the sulfuric acid, explained in the CCOO union. Martinez did not know what might happen, but one thing is clear: "When you open that area, that chest, there was a leak and was not detected. We never should have let you in there. "
The dangers of mercury
Mercury and its compounds are highly toxic. "It accumulates in the kidney, liver, and immune system, where else, in nervous," said chemist Jose Luis Garcia Fierro CSIC. "It also affects the eye and touch, and the effects can be irreversible," he adds.
The most habitual intoxication usually chronic, because of the power. Mercury in fish appears due to chemical pollution of the oceans. In 2011, Spain recommended for pregnant women and children under three eat no emperor or bluefin tuna.
Earlier this year, more than 140 countries concluded an agreement-called Minamata convention the Japanese community in the fifties suffered a massive intoxication by methylmercury discharges to the sea-to veto use.
"It is not yet well known health effects of mercury. Only 50 years of Minamata "says Garcia Fierro. "I know many cases of workers exposed to mercury vapors years with nervous system problems," he explains.
A pine just over 200 meters is all that separates the colorful houses of the district of San Juan de Nieva zinc Asturiana. If not for the trees, the view from the balconies would be smoking chimneys, silos and tanks. One of them looks Chelo Muñiz: "Nobody told anything," he complains. What we know of the accident I have read in the local press. Many of his neighbors were alarmed when the newspapers began incessant drip of new affected. All were workers, but the limits of the factory are not waterproof. They wanted to know if they too were breathing mercury. "My doctor said we could do analysis, but then gave orders that no, that if there were no symptoms. And since no one has told us the symptoms ... "shrugs Muñiz.
"All environmental data are negative," he says emphatically Julio Bruno, Director General of Public Health of the Principality. "The population has been exposed," he insists in his office in the center of Oviedo while opening a folder with a study by the Institute of Applied Geology at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. There were about 6,000 measurements in two days of January in different parts of the factory. The mercury concentration varied between 0.023 and 12.5 micrograms per cubic meter. The Limit Value (TLV) of this pollutant in the workplace is 20. The residential areas, 0.3, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Bruno says he is confident that the mercury stood at the factory. The woman in the area with high levels of lead in blood than the newspapers talked for days "not recorded" anywhere. This newspaper could not find it. Bruno acknowledged that the accident is "an important public health problem" and that there is little knowledge of similar events "or Asturias in Spain or in Europe." The Ministry of Health will track over the years of the health of workers intoxicated, announces.
"People come here to ask for explanations, not going there to see the counselor," Mayor turns Castrillon, Angela Vallina (IU). "We received information from the government or from the company. We call ourselves the doors. There are full opacity "he says. As yet no official report or just explanations unofficial Vallina wonders if there will be in the factory a second focus control even without explaining the cases, three months later, are still detected. "The factory is vital for this municipality. Without their IAE \ [Business Tax \] we would hardly budgets "he admits. "An accident can happen but there must be transparency and information, and we must comply with the rules."
The accident happened Asturian Zinc at an awkward time for the owner, the multinational commodity Xstrata, based in Switzerland and listed in London. The merger with Glencore, another giant of the world market for copper and zinc, among others, is imminent.
The director of the Asturian Institute of Occupational Risk Prevention, Miryam Hernandez, claims to have five technicians dedicated only to this research, which conclusions will "soon". "It is a fact that we had not ever met," he admits. Handles hypotheses about why he had excess mercury, which have to do with changing a filter in May 2012, but stresses "complete and utter unpredictability of the conditions would find operatives who entered the confined space" . "There is a poor risk assessment of mercury exposure," he adds. "But that does not mean we have a mini Chernobyl there. There is a public health problem, but occupational exposure. "
When excess mercury was not measured, other circumstances contributed: 12-hour shifts, rain clothes and permeating exposure exacerbated breathing, lack of separate lockers clean and dirty, the presence of nearby food machines (operators could ingest the mercury deposited in food), Hernandez lists. There were workers who gave up 900 micrograms of mercury in blood. The magistrate No. 4 of Avilés, which has officially opened criminal proceedings, pending reports of government and business. "Mutuals are being discharged to the workers who return to normal levels of mercury, but many still with symptoms. And we do not know what may have consequences in the future, "says Marta Monteserín, counsel of 11 of those affected.
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