Vietnam’s Chemical Army, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Hanoi’s authority will decontaminate the site where a warehouse storing liquid mercury caught fire at the end of August. Pham Van Ty, deputy chief of the secretariat of the National Committee for Incident, Natural Disaster Response and Search and Rescue, made the statement on September 10 night, according to local media.
Officiers of the Military Institute of Environment and Chemistry collect samples from the area surrounding the burnt Rang Dong light bulb warehouse in Hanoi on September 5. Photo: Minh Hung
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Ty said that various remediation technologies are under consideration while brigadier general Le Manh Tien, deputy head of the People’s Army Search and Rescue Office, stressed that the army’s chemical division can completely remove the toxins at the warehouse.
"The Chemical Army has handled several cases of chemical pollution, the most recent one was the leakage of 30 tons of chemicals into the sea," said Tien.
Rang Dong JSC will remove the fire debris to a treatment facility and assist the military chemical division in environmental remediation work. Its factory will also be relocated away from the residential area, Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said yesterday.
Hanoi Sewage and Drainage Company has been tasked with clearing the sewage systems in the areas surrounding the Rang Dong warehouse by September 20.
The People's Committee of Thanh Xuan district, where the factory is located, is responsible for implementing the project of dredging the drainage system from Nguyen Tuan - Nguyen Trai intersection to the To Lich River to ensure environmental sanitation and must complete the task before the year end.
The Hanoi Department of Health together with the People's Committee of Thanh Xuan district will provide free checkup for kindergarteners, preschoolers and kindergarten nurturers in Ha Dinh and Thanh Xuan Trung wards.
The five-hour blaze that started at 6:00 pm on August 28 destroyed a third of the inventory at the 6,000-square-meter warehouse belonging to the Rang Dong JSC, a leading manufacturer of lighting products and equipment.
Preliminary statistics from Rang Dong JSC estimated property damage from the fire worth around VND150 billion (US$6.45 million).
Investigations have only revealed that storage procedure flop was the cause of the fire. The exact cause is yet to be determined.
