Chemical May Have Caused Ukraine ‘Poisonous Trap’

Pollution may have turned a western Ukrainian city where children’s hair is falling out into a “poisonous trap,” a Soviet newspaper said Wednesday.

Most of the children of Chernovtsy have been evacuated from the city, and officials said they should not return until the source of the pollution is found, the weekly Literary Gazette reported. The city of 214,000 is near the Romanian border, about 675 miles southwest of Moscow.

It said that 127 children are now ill with the strange disease that affects the hair and nervous system, up from 113 a week ago.

Source Not Pinpointed

Children from infants to 15 became afflicted with the disease in August. Last week, officials reported they had isolated the chemical that caused the problem--thallium.

Thallium is a poisonous chemical element used in making anti-knock compounds for gasoline, photoelectric cells, rat poison and other products.

But Literary Gazette said on Wednesday that authorities still have not pinpointed the source of the thallium. It said the factories in Chernovtsy had all been checked and none had leaked thallium into the environment.

One suspected cause is a mixture containing thallium that local residents had been adding to their automobiles because of a gasoline shortage.

“The automobile emissions coming from such cars may have turned the old--and therefore not so well ventilated--part of the city into a poisonous trap,” Literary Gazette said.

A chemical plant in Romania 42 miles away is also suspected as a possible cause, and the Soviet Foreign Ministry is pursuing the case with Romanian authorities, the newspaper said.

Ten factories in Chernovtsy have been ordered shut while the investigation continues, and cars have been banned from the city center.

All children have been evacuated whose parents wished for them to leave, the newspaper said. It said that all but about 15% to 17% of the preschoolers and 30% of the school-aged children have left.

The children who remain are apparently nervous. One 5-year-old, Lesi Pospolitak, was constantly putting her hands on her head “so that my hair doesn’t fall out.”