The Minister of the Environment says that the situation in Praid remains critical: “Let's prevent a possible ecological catastrophe”

The Minister of Environment Mircea Fechet, said on Friday night that the situation in Praid “remains critical”. He explained that the erosions in the mine ceiling have expanded.

“The situation remains critical, because the erosions in the ceiling of the old mine have expanded, in the last days, not only horizontally, but especially in depth (…) Zero priority is to protect the human lives and to prevent a possible ecological catastrophe,” the minister wrote on his Facebook page.

He claimed that the Romanian waters allocated 3.1 million lei on Friday morning for the start of the feasibility study to the accumulations that will mitigate, in the future, the risk of floods on the Corund stream.

“We set out to quickly identify a financing source for the desalination of the Târnava Mică river, so that the drinking water supply is resumed for the 40,000 people who are in the localities where the alert status was declared, the tap water being now polluted with chlorides and not recommended for consumption,” Mircea wrote.

According to the minister, “good news” is that the works have also advanced on the site for the deviation of the Corund stream, stating that the water flow is decreasing. National and European Civil Protection experts analyze technical solutions to ensure the entire structure affected by floods and, at the same time, to evacuate millions of cubic meters of underground salt water.

The definitive stabilization of the area is analyzed

He stressed that the interventions from Praid are not only to save a historical mine, but also to protect an entire community. “For this reason, we analyze the medium and long term scenarios for the definitive stabilization of the affected area, even under extreme weather conditions or in the case of new infiltrations, but also for the impact on the environment to be as low and controllable,” wrote the minister.

“We will also start evaluating on the compensations necessary for the losses suffered by the local economic operators,” added Fechet.

“We check, step by step, the measures to safely put saline, housing and infrastructure. We talk to the specialists about the interventions in progress and about the urgent decisions to be implemented. We work coordinated: ministries, local administration and Salrom, to effectively manage the situation and limit the risks,” He was in Praid with Deputy Prime Minister Tánczos Barna, Minister of Economy, Bogdan Ivan, and the head of the Emergency Department, Raed Arafat.