RUSSIA FALLOUT WORSE PLUTONIUM FOUND IN AIR

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 13, 1993                   TAG: 9304130192
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium
RUSSIA FALLOUT WORSE PLUTONIUM FOUND IN AIR
The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry said Monday that the amount of land contaminated by last week's explosion at a nuclear weapons plant in Siberia was greater than previously estimated and that traces of plutonium had been found in the atmosphere.
A ministry spokesman, Georgy Kaurov, described the traces of plutonium released by the explosion at the Tomsk-7 chemical complex as so "insignificant" that the precise amount is difficult to measure by standard equipment. Plutonium is a radioactive, highly poisonous metal processed from uranium and used as the core of nuclear bombs.
The acknowledgement that plutonium was released in the April 5 accident - even in microscopic amounts, which have been shown to be deadly if inhaled - is likely to fuel concern about the environmental and other dangers associated with Russia's nuclear weapons program. The environmental group Greenpeace has accused the Kremlin of covering up the severity of the accident in an attempt to conceal the fact that plutonium is still being produced in Russia in significant quantities.
Official estimates of the extent of contamination as a result of the explosion in a reprocessing tank have varied widely. The Atomic Energy Ministry said Monday that the contaminated area measured 46 square miles, an increase of 11 square miles over the estimate last week. The ministry continues to insist that the explosion posed no danger to people living nearby.
In an attempt to calm international concern about the accident at Tomsk, the ministry said it had invited experts from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out an independent inspection. In theory, Russia is not obliged to issue such an invitation since the Tomsk-7 facility is a military rather than a civilian installation.
Built almost four decades ago as part of a crash nuclear weapons program, Tomsk-7 is one of three plutonium processing plants in the former Soviet Union.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB