Sunk freighter cleared in radioactivity test

Press, 28 August 1984, Page 6

Sunk freighter cleared in radioactivity test

NZPA-AFP Paris No radioactivity has been detected around the French freighter that sank with 450 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride gas at the week-end, nor aboard the Englandbound ferry that rammed the freighter, according to officials of the French Government and the West German ferry line. Two French Navy ships were sent to sample sea water around the wreck, but found no trace of fluorhydric acid, which would form if any of the gas was leaking from the steel drums, officials said. The container ship MontLouis sank after it was rammed by the German ferry boat Olau Britannia

20km off the Belgian seaside resort of Ostend. Reuters reports that the Paris-based firm, Compagnie Generale Maritime (C.G.M.), has begun studying ways of quickly recovering the cargo. C.G.M. emphasised in a statement that there was no danger of pollution from the consignment of uranium hexafluoride which was in sealed containers. The company quoted the French Atomic Energy Commission as saying there was no danger of the containers leaking for at least a year. It said that even if they did, any pollution would be negligible and present no danger to humans or the environment. A spokesman for the

Greenpeace environmental organisation in London, noting this was the first time a 'ship was known to have sunk with such a cargo, said, “The consequences of this accident on fishing and tourist industries can only be guessed at.” He said the Greenpeace organisation would urge the British and French Seamen’s Unions and the International Transport Workers Federation not to crew ships carrying such cargoes. The French Seamen’s Union has complained of inadequate safeguards against radioactivity aboard the freighters that have been shipping hexafluoride to the Soviet Union, and has charged that the crews were too small for safe

navigation. Both the British and French Seamen’s Unions complained that officials had failed to mention the radioactive cargo after the collision. The gas is in steel containers designed to withstand the pressure of the sea at depths up to 200 metres. The Mont-Louis sank in only 15 metres of water. Hexafluoride is used to separate radioactive uranium from the nonradioactive isotope by the gas-diffusion method. The material is highly toxic and corrosive, but is not, in the form it is normally imported by the Soviet Union, any more radioactive than natural uranium mined from the earth.