Tragedy of Hrybovychi rubbish dump

On 28^th May 2016 in the evening huge fire flashed on Hrybovychi rubbish dump near 3 km from Lviv and firemen arrived to extinguish it, what they managed to do only in the morning on 30^th May. But in midday 30^th May large garbage collapse happened and hundreds thousands of garbage fell on three firemen and ecologist of one Lviv communal economy. On 31^st May there were found the bodies of three saviours: Andriy Vnenkevych and Bohdan Yunko from Zhovkva and Yuriy Rudyy from Rava-Ruska, who were buried on the next day, though body of ecologist Oleksandr Butin isn’t found till now. Some fire flashes appeared locally during first June’s days and in general fire was finally extinguished on 10^th June.

The problem of Hrybovychi rubbish dump wasn’t new till this catastrophe, for years many ecologists, politicians and public activists demanded to close that garbage dump and to build waste remaking plant in Lviv region. After Hrybovychi tragedy some public activists brought dust-heaps in Lviv City Council as a sign of their disagree with actions of Lviv city power and registered on Lviv City Council’s site the petition for resignation of Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyy, which quickly got necessary votes to be examined. But on 9^th June mayor Sadovyy pleased Ministry of Internal Affairs to surround Lviv City Council’s building with large quantity of policemen and militaries from National Guard not to let public activists to be present during Lviv deputies’ session, thus Lviv mayor destroyed by himself famous slogan of his team “Lviv open to the world”. Except it, in March of 2016 it has been published official list of 43 companies which had appealed to Lviv authorities with proposals of building waste remaking enterprise, but Lviv mayor A. Sadovyy delayed these suggestions. 

Hrybovychi garbage dump is considered a third largest ecologically dangerous object in Europe and is included in top-10 dangerous objects in the world. It was necessary to sound the alarm yet in January of 2016, when sour tar run out from the artificially made tar lakes-pits on Hrybovychi garbage dump to near forest and in the Malekhivka River. Then dead fish found floating on reservoirs of nearby villages and the water was poisoned in local wells. And that sour tar of Hrybovychi rubbish dump creates another huge problem for Lviv region, besides accumulated garbage on the largest Ukraine’s dump, lack of waste remaking plant in Lviv region and new Lviv rubbish, which is temporally transported in different Ukrainian cities for short terms, for example, to Kyiv waste-burning plant.