BEIJING, September 15 (RIA Novosti) - Three Chinese tourists have bought a 274-kg (604-lb) piece of depleted uranium and brought it home from Kyrgyzstan as a souvenir, the China Daily newspaper reported Monday.
The three tourists from the city of Aksu in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region bought "the glittering treasure" for $2,000 at a flea market in Kyrgyzstan, hoping to make money by reselling it in China.
MAILUU-SUU, 10 September 2008 (IRIN) - "I carry clean [drinking] water with my truck to the villages upstream almost on a daily basis. I was born here and I remember that in the past the road on this side of the river was closed to traffic. They say that was because of some mines and radioactive waste tailings," Bakyt told IRIN in Kairygach, about 10-15 minutes' drive from Mailuu-Suu.
There are some signs warning about radioactivity - meaning there are waste dumps located not far from the road and the river. Actual waste dumps are natural or artificial holes filled with the toxic waste and covered with soil as a protective cover.
ORLOVKA, 1 March 2006 (IRIN) - Hundreds of people dressed in dirty clothes and masks are digging in a refuse site for lumps of silicon just 10 metres from a radioactive waste dump in the northern Kyrgyz village of Orlovka, 100 km east of the capital, Bishkek.
Through the stench of rotting rubbish and the dust, “miners” sitting around eating and drinking become aggressive when asked if they are aware of the dangers they face.
OSH, 14 April 2005 (IRIN) - A landslide which hit the area surrounding the southern Kyrgyz town of Mailuu-Suu on Wednesday evening is causing concern among the authorities because of its proximity to huge radioactive dumps from Soviet-era uranium mines.
The land movement halted the flow of a key river and water source in Mailuu-Suu and blocked the road linking the town with the adjacent village of Sary-Bee, an official told IRIN on Thursday.
