British Memo Warns Diplomats of Russian Y2K Catastrophe

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Another piece of evidence that teotwawki is coming from newsmax.com

====================================================================== British Memo Warns of Russian Y2K Catastrophe NewsMax.com July 4, 1999

The British embassy in Moscow has warned diplomats about inviting friends and family to Russia during the upcoming New Year, Britain's Sunday Independent reports today. Fearing the implications of the Y2K millenium bug, an internal embassy memo leaked to the Independent underscored British concerns that Russia is "considered one of the countries most vulnerable to Y2K problems."

The report notes that Russia has recently increased efforts to fix the Y2K problem. Experts, however, have concluded that Russia is doing too little, too late, to manage the computer problem. The Independent states that "at risk" areas in Russia include transport, electricity supply, telecommunications, and heating systems.

An American Chamber of Commerce report issued by Terralink, an IT firm specialising in millennium bug issues, found that Russia could suffer catastrophic consequences because it was "very likely that major infrastructure providers upon whom everybody depends, will experience Y2K failures".

Notably, experts have pointed to concerns about Russia's nuclear power stations, fearing a meltdown similar to Chernobyl, if the power grid fails.

Russian officials have been dismissive of the Y2K problem.

Ilya Klebanov, a deputy prime minister, recently said that "nothing awful is expected in Russia, and problems will be resolved by December". But independent experts scoff at such claims. Klebanov's predecessor "as late as May was complaining that 20 government departments had not yet submitted plans on tackling the millennium bug," the Independent reported.

Michael Haddock, chief press officer at the British embassy in Moscow, confirmed the Y2K warning memo.

"It exists, but it is internal. It is not a directive from the Foreign Office." But, he said, it did "reflect the thinking at the moment".

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-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), July 07, 1999

Answers

"Notably, experts have pointed to concerns about Russia's nuclear power stations, fearing a meltdown similar to Chernobyl, if the power grid fails."

Make that *several* Chernobyl-type meltdowns with no emergency response, help, rescues, communication, or evacuations. Got your KI yet?

xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 07, 1999.


"..."at risk" areas in Russia include transport, electricity supply, telecommunications, and heating systems."

Isn't that what's AT RISK everywhere? Depending, on the "local" situation, of course.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 07, 1999.


Probably a silly question . . but . . a genuine one nonetheless. . .

If youre honestly expecting a scenario as painted above . .

Multiple catastrophic meltdowns of nuclear power plants (a la Chernobyl), happening at the same time (more or less), and (one assumes) not just in Russia, but in China, Pakistan, Estonia, The Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekestan, and all the other "backward, uncivilised" countries which have nuclear power . . . .

Then what on EARTH do your preparations look like ?

How do you prepare for global nuclear contamination on such a scale ?

A small pistol and a single bullet perhaps ?

Kind Regards

W

-- W0lv3r1n3 (W0lv3r1n3@yahoo.com), July 07, 1999.


W0lv3r1n3,

No but aome simple stuff CAN deal with this. Greenhouse that has NO external air intake other then trough a sand filter. Water that comes from an 200ft well, gas masks and dosi meters. small fallout shelter. The radiation disbursed into the atmosphere through this type of meltdown is easier dealt with then with nuclear war.

-- justme (justme@justme.net), July 07, 1999.


One guess is as good as another.

-- Barb (awaltrip@telepath.com), July 07, 1999.


Preps for several Chernobyls? You will need to have a fallout shelter (not a blast shelter), some special clothing that will protect you from fallout. This means plastic covers for the shoes that go over the pants of your plastic leg covers and a poncho looking thing with a resperator. The fall out shelter should have a filtering system for air borne particles, an entrance room where you can shower off and shed your plastic outer clothes to keep yourself from tracking fallout in to your shelter, and either distance from fallout (like your attic or 2nd level for stuff on the roof) or a barrier (like earth or sand bags three feet high around your houese if your shelter is your basement). Get a dosemeter and gieger counter(sp?). Nuclear fallout is radiactive dust. If you don't breath it and keep it off you it washes out of the air and collects in low lying ground like all the other dust. Give it about three months after the fires are out.

And, of course, for those of you who watched the same Saturday afternoon movies I did, you will need a weapon to stop mutants in case Spud-zilla rises from the depths of your potato patch.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), July 07, 1999.


Hey, three months? Better go check my copy of NWSS. Can't imagine having to wear those Israeli gas masks for three months, especially if we're living in an earth covered family expedient trench shelter! Ha! Now that's right there is my idea of TEOTWAWKI if ever there was one!!!

-- Barb (awaltrip@telepath.com), July 07, 1999.

Barb

Your basement IS a trench. Why dig another?

A gas mask is overkill. You simply want to prevent inhalation of dust.

NWSS? Pretty good book. Lots easier to read than "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons".

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), July 07, 1999.


Got-no-basement blues, that's why we'll be diggin our trench! Hopefully, digging that one will be enough! I agree NWSS is a great resource. Will have to "dig" some more till I get this gas mask thing straight for myself. It's the details that'll getcha!

-- Barb (awaltrip@telepath.com), July 07, 1999.

Any basement is better than the ground floor. A basement under a brick house is better than one under a wood frame house-- bricks offer some shielding from gamma radiation. Any basement windows should be blocked with brick or concrete block -- glass will not block gamma radiation.

A basement that is not sealed against airborne radioactive dust is not an adequate shelter. As noted earlier, a thoroughly filtered intake for outside air is necessary. If contamination is heavy the filters themselves will become hazardous waste.

There seems to be a general impression that potassium iodide (KI) is some sort of overall protection against nuclear radiation. Don't count on it. KI does one thing only -- if ingested it satifies the thyroid gland's requirement for iodine. Once this requirement is filled, your uptake of the radioactive iodine present in fallout from nuclear explosions will be minimized.

KI does absolutely nothing to mitigate the physiological effects of gamma radiation or to protect the body against it. Alpha radiation is stopped by paper or clothing; it can burn unprotected skin. Breathed into the lungs, alpha particles can induce severe cell damage. Beta radiation is more penetrating -- but is stopped by a millimeter of aluminum.

From http://www.bnlfable.com/3 bertell.html:

"The cellular damage caused by internally deposited radioactive particles becomes manifest as a health effect related to the particular organ damaged. For example, radionuclides lodged in the bones can damage bone marrow and cause bone cancers or leukaemia, while radionuclides lodged in the lungs can cause respiratory diseases. Generalised whole body exposure to radiation can be expressed as a stress related to a person's hereditary medical weakness. Individual breakdown usually occurs at our weakest point. In this way, man-made radiation mimics natural radiation and causes the ageing or breakdown process to be accelerated".

A comprehensive discussion can be found in Nuclear Radiation and its Biological Effects

This essential lay-person's primer provides a wealth of details about radiation and its effects on living systems. From No Immediate Danger, Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth, 1985, by Dr. Rosalie Bertell, "Part One, The Problem", pp. 15-63.


-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 08, 1999.


This all sounds fine and dandy . . but . . extending these "survival" concepts into a best-guess scenario of the general state of the planet (and expected lifestyle) AFTER you come blinking out of your shelter . . . .

I'll take the pistol and the single bullet. (If its all the same to you folks). 100% the best of luck to you all IF it comes down to it though. :))

Kindest Regards

W

-- W0lv3r1n3 (W0lv3r1n3@yahoo.com), July 08, 1999.


W0lv3r1n3-- understand your views here on the last bullet, etc.

My cautions regarding use of a basement as shelter relate only to near-term survival, and do not address an exit strategy. If a widespread area has been contaminated with radioactive isotopes, crops and wild berries will be dusted with them, and fish and grazing animals may -- depending on the level of contamination -- consume enough radioactive material to make their use as food a serious health risk. The Sami in Sweden had to sacrifice some 73,000 reindeer after Chernobyl as the animals' flesh carried unacceptable levels of Cesium-137 ingested while grazing on lichen.

From http://niazi.com/Milk/chem.htm:

"The biggest danger from radioactive fallout was the contamination of air and food such as leafy vegetables and milk and meat from cows that graze on contaminated grass. Contamination from Chernobyl spread throughout Europe, affecting reindeer in Swedish Lapland, cattle and sheep in Great Britain, vegetables and rabbits in Italy. Cows in countries bordering Russia had significantly high level of radioactivity in their milk and were destroyed because no one knew how long it would take for the cows to purge themselves. [...] nursing mothers in Oregon and Washington showed elevated iodine- 131 and cesium-137 levels within two weeks of the accident."

Let's hope all goes well next year.

-- Tom Carey (
tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 08, 1999.


Closing that link!

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 08, 1999.

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