The Ivanovs from Krasny Yar (Amur Region) have been afraid for several days to go to livestock pens. According to the owners, an "anomalous zone" measuring one and a half meter has formed in their courtyard near the drinking bowls.
As soon as the cattle stand in this place, after a while the cow or pig falls and dies. In one day, a peasant family lost several heads of livestock: a foster cow and three pigs died in front of the owners under strange circumstances. The veterinarians who performed the autopsies did not find signs of dangerous infections.
While the local authorities are at a loss as to what the mass death of domestic animals could be connected with, the owners threaten to file an application with the environmental prosecutor's office. The journalists of the newspaper "Amurskaya Pravda" went to investigate the anomalous question.
Bog in the middle of the paddock
- We lived for many years, did not grieve, and suddenly strange things began - just from Thursday to Friday, - Tatyana Ivanova began a conversation with tears in her eyes, meeting correspondents near the estate.
Through the courtyard, the hostess led us to the gate, behind which we had to stop - for fear that we might drown in the fetid slurry that seeped through the old boardwalk.
- Why is it so humid here? It has not rained for a long time, the weather is dry.
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- Yes, we have dampness here in any weather. In the middle of the pen is an eternal puddle. We have been living for 28 years and all the time we don’t dump everything there: sand, old branches, household and construction waste … It would seem that a huge mountain should grow here, and everything disappears into a quagmire. The soil in this place is going somewhere, and every year it gets worse and worse.
The villager walked in front and all the time pressed against the corrals, avoiding the place where there are rusted metal drinkers.
- This is where it all happened. There, further on, we have kids, calves. I need to feed and water them every day. I walk along the edge, one plank, and I'm afraid. Opposite the drinkers is a pig pen. The husband opens himself, feeds them. He has already begun to fence off this place so that no one would step there. Who knows what came out of there?
VERSION 1: SWEET GAS
In the eyes of the mistress, bewilderment and fear. According to her assumptions, the cause of death of pets was the release of some harmful gas that could come out from under the bog.
“In the morning, the cows came to the trough with water, and suddenly something went wrong with them,” she recalled the details of the unfortunate day. “Both fell right here at once. We thought that the cows were poisoned - there was mouse poison in the hay. I diluted lactic acid, poured it into their mouth. They lay down for a while and got up. After that, we drove the heifer to a neighboring yard, and left the cow. I milked her, poured water into the trough. While the milk has taken, I return, and she is already dead in the quagmire. She died in just a few minutes!
I immediately reported the incident to the village council to send a veterinarian. And a few hours later, it all happened again.
- The husband returned from the cattle burial, washed, ate and went to clean the pigs' pen. He opened the door, the pigs ran out with a squeal, and suddenly, a few minutes later, one after another began to fall. Three pigs died at once - all in the same place where the cow had died before. Two pigs crawled back a little, and the sow crawled to the gate, - Tatiana waved towards the neighbors. “A neighbor's boar was walking there, he came up to her, sniffed, and he immediately started having convulsions, foam came out of his nose … We looked and could not understand: what kind of reaction could have gone from the sow, which had such an effect on the boar?
“Maybe it was a swamp gas blowout ?!” - the residents of Krasny Yar make assumptions. As Tatyana Ivanova admitted, she noticed more than once: when she walks around the flocks for a long time, especially in wet weather, she starts to have tachycardia and gets nauseous. The woman believes that environmentalists should examine her farmstead. We stood for half an hour next to the ill-fated place, but apart from the dung stench we felt nothing.
VERSION 2: CHINESE CHEMISTRY
The villagers shrug their shoulders: “To poison the animals? Who needs it ?! " The Ivanovs have no enemies in the village. An 80-year-old woman lives in the neighborhood on one side, and on the other, there are no neighbors at all. Previously, the second half of the house was occupied by the Chinese, but six years ago they moved out, leaving "legacy" sacks with some chemicals. Maybe the chemicals somehow got into the water or the animal feeders?
Representatives of the district administration, who visited the site, took samples of the contents for analysis. It turned out that these are not fertilizers, but a plant growth enhancer. The Chinese watered watermelons with this additive.
- They said that this powder is harmless. Volodya the Chinese even rubbed it in his palms and rubbed his cheeks. Therefore, they did not remove the bags. Chickens have been running over them for so many years and do not die,”the hostess shrugged.
According to the victim, no "anomaly" takes her chickens. They have more than once ran through the ill-fated area where cows and pigs die, and they do not care. The daughter of the owners watched our conversation attentively, holding her little son so that he would not go to us through the open gate.
“We live in constant fear,” the woman continued. “We have four adult pigs and nine pigs left. We do not let them out of the pen. We are afraid: what if they come to this place and everything will repeat itself? If we are left without living creatures, what will we live on? I am unemployed, one husband works, we live mainly on the farm. And here in one day 100 thousand losses. Two weeks have passed, and we have not yet been given an answer as to the reason for the death of animals! We are afraid that we ourselves will soon stretch our legs in this place.
VERSION 3: ELECTRIC CURRENT
Not far from the corrals, the Ivanovs have a shower, where the electrical wiring runs. The dilapidated structure also began to sink into the bog.
- Yes, this shower has been here for 20 years. And for the last two years we have not been using it at all - we have been washing in the bath, - the owners objected. - And the wires all go on top. If the reason was in the current, then we ourselves could be killed. We stepped on this place and did not feel anything. Just some kind of mysticism!
The district administration does not believe in mysticism. And they build their assumptions, recalling other cases of death of animals.
“Many years ago, in the village of Chesnokovo, an electrical wire broke and the cows were killed by electric shock,” they gave us one example. - The zootechnician, who was an eyewitness, immediately said that all the symptoms of the death of animals in the courtyard of the residents of Krasny Yar resemble that incident. At first the cows were shaken, then they began to fall. On autopsy, it was noticeable that the scar was edematous, as in those cows that had been electrocuted.
OPINION
Irina Lyutova, head of the agriculture sector of the Mikhailovsky district administration:
- We got a call from the Zelenoborsk village council and asked: “What to do? The veterinarians have determined that the cow has not been poisoned as they immediately assumed. When three more pigs fell on the Ivanovs' compound, panic began. They called specialists from the animal protection station from Konstantinovka. They took materials from the fallen animals for bacteriological inoculation and sent them to Blagoveshchensk.
Such studies are carried out only in the regional center. There is no official conclusion yet. When we receive it, we will determine our further actions. If the infectious version disappears, we will involve civil defense and emergency specialists to inspect the dangerous area. We will inform Amurskaya Pravda about the results of the checks.
Valentina Kashina, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Head of the AmurTISIZ Engineering and Environmental Survey Party:
- Yes, swamp gas can cause death, both in humans and in animals. But even if there was a local release of gas from the bowels of the earth, then this would hardly have happened on the territory of the barnyard - the space is ventilated. So instantly death even from chemicals does not occur. It is necessary that a very high concentration of the toxic substance gets into the body.
It's hard to say what happened there. I am inclined to the version that the animals were most likely exposed to electric current. People walk around with their shoes on, they could not feel a slight tension. In animals, hooves are not protected by anything from water seeping through the flooring. When they started drinking from the iron bowl, a short circuit may have occurred. The animal could become a current conductor. I would advise first of all to call not ecologists, but electricians.