Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Friday toured the site of a massive hazardous chemical spill, as numbers of local residents made sick by the accident continued to increase, according to dpa. The Ukrainian leader flew the village of Ozhidov, epicentre of the accident, in the country's western Lviv province on Friday afternoon. A Tuesday freight train derailment in Lviv cracked open six of fifteen 50-ton hazardous chemical containers filled with liquid phosphorus, sparking a fire and a poisonous smoke cloud covering an estimated 90 square kilometres of land. At least 11,000 people are believed to have been downwind from the cloud. A total of 147 emergency workers and local residents have been hospitalized after exposure to the toxic chemical, according to a Health Ministry statement. Yushchenko was scheduled to visit a hospital and meet with victims on Friday evening. At least 2,000 people have received some kind of medical treatment for early symptoms of phosphorus exposure, typically including headache, dizziness and loss of appetite, the Interfax new agency reported. Repair teams had removed three undamaged phosphorus containers from the rail-carriage debris by Friday morning. Repair and clean-up work was continuing, but poisonous fumes from broached containers were hindering the effort. The nine containers holding phosphorus and not damaged in the accident will be returned the manufacturer in Kazakhstan "under enhanced security," said Nestor Shufrich, Ukraine's Emergency Situations Minister. Ozhidov's only pharmacy had run out of most supplies by Friday morning, and prices for basic household supplies had doubled in the region, Korrespondent magazine reported. Ozhidov Mayor Oleksander Shakh told the Channel 5 television channel: "We no longer expect help from government, our hope is on charitable people ... We need simple help - mineral water, basic foods and detergents." Officials from five major Ukrainian government bureaucracies - the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Transport, the national railroad Ukrzhelesnitsia, the army, and the police - all have sent teams to the area, and since Tuesday have been vocal in asserting that the situation is under control. Comments by Vice Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on Friday to Kiev reporters were typical. "From the very beginning reports of the scale and effect of this mishap have been overblown," Azarov said. "I am confident that in the next day or two the government will provide the public with reliable information." Yushchenko's decision to travel to the accident site, despite official assurances from bureaucrats like Azarov and Shufrich the government was doing everything possible to help, was seen by observers as additional proof the Ukrainian leader was dissatisfied with the clean-up efforts so far. A Yushchenko spokesman on Wednesday called for the resignation of Transport Minister Mykola Rudolkovsky over the accident. Rudolkovsky on Thursday said there were no grounds for him to quit his job. Prior to the trip, Yushchenko laced into Rudolkovsky in front of Kiev reporters, calling the minister "a general for weddings ... not capable of controlling any part of the Transport Ministry ... but the staff of the ministry building in the capital." Political finger-pointing in the wake of the accident has been intense even by Ukrainian standards. Parliamentary elections are scheduled in the country for September 30.
