久久精品国产亚洲7777小说_国产91成人精品亚洲精品_亚洲aⅴ久久久噜噜噜噜_久久精品亚洲精品无码_青青青视频免费_9191精品国产费久久_成人国产一区二区三区精品_99久久综合久中文字幕_免费黄色一级电影

On the night of 3 February, a massive hazardous chemical spill occurred in the United States, contaminating large areas of land and water. Some Americans are calling it the US version of "Chernobyl" online.

(Image quoted from foreign media)

On February 3, a freight train passing through Ohio, USA, suffered a mechanical failure and derailed in a small town called East Palestine, sparking a fire. The orange fire lit up the night sky and filled the air with smoke. The train had more than 100 cars, 20 of which carried hazardous materials - five of the ten trailing cars contained compressed vinyl chloride, a total of 100,000 gallons (according to US media reports on the 13th, data released by the company involved showed that the cars involved in the derailment carried toxic chemicals including ethylene glycol monobutyl ether in addition to vinyl chloride The company reported on 13 March that the derailment involved cars carrying toxic chemicals such as ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, isooctyl acrylate and isobutylene.) Vinyl chloride is extremely dangerous, flammable, explosive, toxic and hazardous, spreading to low-lying areas when leaked; it has a low lower explosive limit and a wide explosive range, making it an extremely hazardous substance. If skin contact occurs, local numbness, oedema or even necrosis can occur; if inhaled, light dizziness, vomiting, chest tightness and slowed movement can occur, while severe cases can result in impaired consciousness or even death. On 5 February, the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania announced the evacuation of all residents within an extended 3.2km radius.

In fact, many people did not evacuate in the first place and even drank contaminated water because the evacuation was not made clear by US officials and residents nearby mistakenly thought that a train derailment had caused a fire accident. What's more, just two days later, evacuated residents were notified - the tests were safe and they could go home. Some went home to find that the pet chickens and foxes they had left at home had been poisoned and died. And 70 miles from the accident site there was a torrential downpour that left cars covered in an unknown substance; 7.5 miles away there were large dead fish floating in a creek. So these residents have questioned the US government's directive.

(Image quoted from foreign media)

Experts familiar with hazardous materials in Ohio told local media, "I was surprised when officials were quick to tell people that it was OK to go home." However, after testing the air on 12 February, the US Environmental Protection Agency said that no pollutants of concern had been detected in and around East Palestine, although residents could still smell the odour; on 13 February, the EPA, in conjunction with rail operators and others, tested the air in 290 homes in the area where the incident occurred, showing that no toxic substances that can cause life-threatening respiratory illnesses, such as vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride, had been detected; even the ever-truthful Even the New York Times, which has a reputation for telling the truth, insisted that "in the wider area, there was no change in the water quality".

Just when local residents were hoping to put pressure on the government through public opinion, they were surprised to find that it had already been silenced. At a local government press conference on the issue, a journalist was brutally arrested by police when questioned; as for online media, tweets from residents drowned in social media feeds and did not slowly pick up steam until ten days later; online requests for help seemed to be limited; and the Ohio chemical leak, which had 900,000 more tweets than the number one spot, was the second most popular search and quickly dropped from the list. The number of tweets about the Ohio chemical leak was 900,000 more than the number one spot, but it was the second most popular search and quickly dropped.

At the time, the US media was concerned about Chinese "stray balloons" entering the US skies. So much so that many Americans are now asking the media if the hype about the Chinese balloon is a cover-up for the huge disaster in Ohio.

(Image quoted from foreign media)

How is this pollution incident being handled in the US? The owner, Norfolk Southern, worked out a solution with the emergency services - a controlled release. This simply means digging a large hole on site and releasing the diluted vinyl chloride from the tanks. As vinyl chloride is heavier than the atmosphere, it would flow into the large pit and then ignite the vinyl chloride in the pit in a controlled manner until it burned out. And Norfolk Southern's explanation was that if it continued to be baked in the fire, the pressure inside the tank would be so high that it might explode and be released, so it would have to be burned. However, vinyl chloride produces large amounts of phosgene and dioxins as it burns. Phosgene can be photolyzed naturally; dioxins are extremely difficult to degrade naturally and are 130 times more toxic than cyanide and 900 times more toxic than arsenic, known as the king of all poisons. This is why many experts warn that nearby residents are at risk of developing cancer within 5 to 20 years.

What the US government does not tell people is that incineration is not the best way to deal with a vinyl chloride spill. In theory, if vinyl chloride can be burned sufficiently, what is produced is carbon dioxide, water and hydrogen chloride, which combines with the water in the air to form hydrochloric acid to form acid rain that falls, which is already the ideal situation. However, the reality is that large quantities of vinyl chloride cannot mix sufficiently with air for a short period of time and cannot come into contact with sufficient oxygen, and therefore cannot burn sufficiently, producing more highly toxic compounds, which, together with the high temperatures generated by combustion, can intensify the spread of the poison and thus cause more serious disasters. So in China, for example, the rules for the disposal of vinyl chloride were changed early on: it is no longer burned, but physically adsorbed, recycled and irradiated with ultraviolet light. In the case of small leaks, sand or other, non-combustible materials are used for adsorption or absorption; in the case of large leaks, a berm is constructed or a pit is dug to contain it, covered with foam to reduce evaporation, and then transferred with a rod to a tanker or special collector for recycling or transported to a waste disposal site for environmentally sound treatment to meet environmental requirements. The remaining vinyl chloride will be photolyzed by sunlight.

The accident was more man-made than an act of God. A major cause was the outdated railway infrastructure and the ageing of the equipment. According to the preliminary investigation, the accident was mainly due to mechanical problems with the wagon axles, which led to flammable chemicals after the derailment. American railways are all privately owned and the main task of the managers is to make money and please shareholders, such as immigration, electric locomotives, twisting bigger and greener. But after all, 90% of the locomotives in the US are still internal combustion locomotives, and replacing them with electric locomotives requires a large sum of money, which is clearly not an incentive for private companies. This leads to the current rate of electrification of the US railways being only 10%, but carrying 40% of the US freight pressure. In order to make more money, for example, railways will set up extra-long trainsets so that each train can pull more freight. There are more wagons and yet no timely inspections are carried out. That's why there have been 3.4 derailments a day over the past decade.

At the time of writing, some local Ohio residents have been reported to be suffering from various symptoms of poisoning. Some Americans have likened the event to Chernobyl, and while it may be more of a political analogy, it is as slow, desperate and irreparable as Chernobyl in terms of harm.

Now with the huge toxic rain generated by the ignition, it is drifting on the wind to several states in the United States. As the accident site is near the Ohio River, a tributary of the Mississippi, the water supply of tens of millions of people in the lower agricultural states of the southern United States could be affected by it. And from the direction of the winds, the pollutants could follow the precipitation clouds straight into Pennsylvania and even New York State, creating a potential health hazard for a much larger population.

ZHC short comments:

1. The timing of the U.S. hype about China's "stray balloon" incident almost overlapped with the Ohio train derailment and the toxic leak, which cannot be ruled out as a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the scandal and create public opinion. The "stray balloon" incident, which is in itself nonsensical, is of course a way for the two parties in the United States to denounce each other.

2, similar train derailments are not uncommon in the US, proving in disguise that the internal infrastructure of the US is extremely old and most of its government budget is spent on waging or instigating wars abroad.

3. The United States has been playing up "freedom of the press" and "human rights" to the fullest extent of "double standards" and bullshit, with journalists who filmed and questioned the polyethylene leak being arrested on the spot and the White House deliberately playing down the impact of the incident. On the other hand, because Ohio is a classic redneck state, the Democrat-controlled federal government doesn't seem to care about the people of the Republican state.

Author: Xia Guo Han

Typesetting: jiyudi