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Page IVTpTATQ Oi CTP^it A^tedpress n i Neliraskan
2 1 ^1 C W 5 l_y IgC 5 t Edited by Jennifer O Cilka Wednesday May ^ 19#1
U.N. opens humanitarian center,
prepares to take over refugee camp
ZAKHO, Iraq - The United
Nations raised its blue-and-white
flag in northern Iraq on Tuesday,
preparing to take over a U.S.-built
camp for Iraqi Kurdish refugees.
Thousands of refugees began
streaming homeward.
Allied officials also hinted there
could be a further expansion of the
security zone for the hundreds of
thousands of Kurds who fled to the
Turkish border after Saddam
Hussein crushed a Kurdish upris
ing in the wake of the Persian Gulf
war.
A U.S. source, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said any
part of Iraq north of the 36th paral
lel would be considered potential
territory for the allied-protected
zone.
“This is a historic day,” said
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jay Gamer,
as United Nations special envoy
Steffan De Mistura officially opened
a humanitarian center for displaced
Kurds near the allied-built tent city
at Zakho.
A cavalcade of overloaded cars,
trucks, wagons, buses and tractors
began descending from the primi
tive mountain camps on the Turk
ish border, heading for the Zakho
area.
Many of the reluming Kurds
drove past the U.S.-built camp and
— went directly to their homes in
Zakho. Those heading to,the tent
city included residents of towns
outside the allied security zone and
those whose homes were damaged.
At the United Nations, the United
States, Britain and France indicated
Tuesday that they believed the U.N.
secretary-general should press Iraq
to permit a U.N. police force to
protect the Kurds and replace the
9,000allied troops in northern Iraq.
The secretary-general, Javier
Perez de Cuellar, was non-com
mittal. Iraq has denounced the
proposal as a violation of its sover
eignty.
The U.N. sanctions committee
deferred action on Iraq’s requests
to regain $1 billion in frozen bank
assets worldwide. It also wants to
sell about SI billion worth of oil to
finance purchase of food, medical
supplies and humanitarian aid.
The economic sanctions were
imposed on Iraq after its Aug. 2
takeover of Kuwait.
Mud-splashed vehicles, many
with smashed headlights and wind
shields, snaked down a winding
mountain road from the Isikveren
camp in Turkey. They were
crammed with adults, children and
even animals, with tents, bedding
and other belongings bundled pre
cariously high on top.
British troops terried down
several hundred refugees, and the
French army led down at least one
caravan of cars and trucks.
By dusk on Tuesday, 2,000 men,
1,240 women and 1,160 children
had passed through an allied check
point. ,,
Star Hassan, an Ir£qi Kurdish
guerrilla, watched the refugees
leaving. “They are very happy, but
not very happy about the safety in
Zakho, because we don’t trust
Saddam Hussein,” he said.
Until Monday, the guerrillas had
been blocking Kurdish refugees
, from leaving the mountains, say
ing it still was not safe to return.
But at a meeting between guer
rilla leaders and allied generals on
Monday, the guerrillas agreed to
stop blocking all the roads, said
Army Lt. Col. Gary Goff. “So far,
they have complied,” he said.
The United Nations outpost, with
a staff of 15, will concentrate in the
short term on providing food for
the people of Zakho.
Gordon Murchie of the State
Department’s Agency for Interna
tional Development said the first
priority was saving the refugees
from starvation in the mountains.
The next step, he said, is “to get
people off the mountains and back
to some kind of physical and psy
chological normality.”
The final phase, he said, will be
the takeover of the effort by U.N.
and non-government organizations.
Bangladesh battered
Typhoon kills thousands
DHAKA, Bangladesh - A power
ful typhoon battered densely popu
lated Bangladesh for more than eight
hours Tuesday, killing at least 1,000
people and leaving millions home
less. State-run television said at least
800 people were killed in the coastal
districts of Cox’s Bazaar, Noakhali
and Bhola when 20-foot waves
whipped up by 145 mph winds swept
ashore.
The storm out of the B ay of Bengal
left more than 250 other people dead
on low-lying coastal islands and in
the port of Chittagong, the federal
Relief Ministry reported. There was
no word from several remote islands
that are home to thousands of people,
due to severed communications.
Prime Minister KhaledaZiacalled
an emergency meeting of her Cabinet
to discuss relief measures. She said
the typhoon had caused damage worth
$1 billion and appealed for interna
tional help.
Relief officials said about 3 mil
lion people in this poor country bor
dered by India and Burma were evacu
ated from flimsy mud and straw homes
in the path of the storm before the
typhoon struck.
About 80 percent of the huts were
blown away, the Relief Ministry offi
cial said.
“The deaths would have been on a
much larger scale” if the residents
.had not been shifted to shelters, he
said.
United News of Bangladesh said
at least 5,000 fishermen aboard 500
trawlers were unaccounted for. It said
their boats were at sea when the ty
phoon struck the southeastern coast
where about 7 million people reside
in 2,000 villages.
The typhoon battered 14 coastal
districts, uprooting trees, telephone
lines and electricity poles, a Relief
Ministry official said, speaking on
condition of anonymity.
Most information on the disaster
came via radios operated by the Red
Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of
the Red Cross.
An official at the Dhara office of
the Red Crescent said he knew of 246
deaths.
Village wiped off map by quake
KUTAISI, U.S.S.R. - Rescuers
Tuesday dug through a mountain vil
lage that one official said was “wiped
off the map,” hoping to find survivors
among dozens of people buried alive
in an earthquake.
Monday’s quake in Soviet Geor
gia killed at least 80 people, injured
500, destroyed 40 schools and six
hospitals, and left 80,000 homeless,
said Georgian Prime Minister Tengiz
Sigua.
Sigua said after a helicopter tour
of the site that he expected the death
toll to rise.
He flew over the village of
Khakhieti, which was destroyed when
a mountainside collapsed and buried
40 people alive. ■<
“It was awful,” Sigua said in an
interview with The Associated Press
in Kutaisi, a city about 36 miles west
of Khakhieti. “Simply put, it’s a night
mare.”
“This village was wiped off the
map,” he said.
Rescuers searched collapsed homes
and buildings in the towns and vil
lages of north-central Georgia for any
survivors.
The injured were being ferried out
to hospitals in the mountainous re
public, while officials were shipping
in busloads of water, food and tents
for the homeless.
About 80 percent of the housing
sjwas destroyed in the affected area,
where about 250,000 people live, Sigua
said.
Wednesday was declared a day of
mourning in Georgia.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
sent his condolences to relatives of
the victims and he authorized his
government to assist the stricken
region.
Offers of aid have been received
from Israel, France and Japan, Sigua
said.
The American Red Cross in Wash
ington said the League of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies sent an
assessment team to Georgia and that
the Armenian Red Cross also sent a
27-member rescue team.
The earthquake struck at 12:13
p.m. Monday among sparsely popu
lated villages and towns and meas
ured 7.1 on the Richter scale. Its epi
center was near 11^,363-foot Mount
Samertskhic and Ambrolauri, a town
90 miles northwest of the Georgian
capital of Tbilisi.
Rescuers managed to save 30 miners
trapped in the Barital barium mine
high in the Caucasus Mountains near
the quake’s epicenter, said Georgia’s
deputy health minister, Merab Kctash
vili.
“None of them were injured, al
though several were short of breath,”
he said by telephone.
• Aftershocks continued throughout
Monday and early Tuesday.
Tremors were felt throughout much
tof the Caucasus Mountains. The area
of greatest damage measured about
24 square miles around the epicenter,
said Sergei Orcfyev of the Institute of
Physics and Earth Sciences.
Also heavily damaged was Dzhava,
a mountain town of 11,000 people
near the epicenter, as well as nearby
Ambrolauri, Oni and Sachkhcrc.
Sachkherc’s railroad station was
reported badly damaged, along with
two churches in the town and a syna
gogue in Oni. The newspaper Kom
somolskaya Pravda reported damage
to military airfields in northern Geor
gia.
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_ment Editor Julie Naughton
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436 9903
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1—1 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Nuclear plant fire
‘Severe’ damage, but no radiation released
-* Wise ASSET, Maine - Fire se
verely damaged the non-nuclear part
of the Maine Yankee nuclear power
- plant, officials said Tuesday. They
said the reactor shut down normally,
no radiation was released and nobody
was injured.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Andrews ac
cused Maine Yankee officials of with
holding details about the fire's sever
ity when it began Monday night. Plant
officials denied trying to downplay it.
“The public has a right to know ex
actly what occurred,” said Andrews,
a Maine Democrat. “They should be
given all the details surrounding the
accident and the ensuing investiga
tion as quickly as possible.”
On Monday night, Maine Yankee
officials confirmed a fire had broken
out, but gave no indication of its
severity and said they could provide
no details until Tuesday. Late Tues
day morning, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission revealed the first de
scription of the fire and details of the
damage.
The company said later Tuesday
that the plant’s mam generator may
have sustained “serious damage*’
during the fire, but that it could be
several days before the extent was
known.
Maine Yankee President Charles
Frizzle said the fire was “probably
the most serious event” at the plant in
its 19 years. He stressed no one was
injured and the blaze posed no danger
to the public.
The fire began 6:32 p.m. Monday
and was classified as an “unusual
event,” the lowest of four ratings the
NRC gives to nuclear plant incidents.
NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci
said that authorities on the scene
reported “a loud boom” preceded the
hydrogen fire, but she said investiga
tors were unsure* whether an explo
sion occurred.
The NRC’s initial report of the
incident said “reports were received
of an explosion in the main trans
former and of multiple hydrogen fires
in the turbine hall.”
Charles Marschall, the NRC’s
senior resident inspector at the plant,
said the Fire was fueled by hydrogen
and damaged the plant’s main trans
former, electrical conductors and wires
leading from the generator to the trans
former.
The transformer feeds electricity
produced by the plant to the transmis
sion system outside the plant, the
company said.
‘‘I don’t want to downgrade the
seriousness of the event, but it’s not a
nuclear event,” Frizzle said at a news
conference Tuesday afternoon. “From
my perspective, this should not re
flect negatively on the use of nuclear
power. It has nothing to do with nu
clear power.”
If the generator is not damaged,
the plant will be shutdown for several'
weeks while officials replace the trans
former. If the generator is inoperable,
the plant may be down for several
months while a new generator is in
stalled, Frizzle said.
Officials were investigating the
source of the Fire, which occurred 100
IP fr°m the containment
building that encases the plant’s nu
clear reactor within a 4 1/2-foot wall
of concrete reinforced with steel.
The plant was operating normally
when the main transformer failed ana
the reactor shut down automatically,
officials said.
•ji ..
