Increased number of tumor cases in Elbasan

Cancer is even affecting young ages under 35. The pulmonary cancer affects most of the people affected in Elbasan, and most of the patients live in the city. Doctors explain it with the environmental pollution.

A cloud of smoke covers the city every morning, to the point that it is difficult to see the highest buildings from a close distance. Environmentalists explain this with the pollution caused by the industrial companies during the night.

“Starting from 19:00, there is a flagrant violation of the Albanian law. They also do it during the weekends, to escape from the law and to spend less in energy for the filters. This happens very often with Kurum”, says Ahmet Mehmeti, leader of the Ecological Club.

The leaders of the Kurum company deny this fact, saying that they release only vapor and not toxic fumes.

“When the scoria gets colder, which reaches 1000-1200 degrees Celsius, a cloud of vapor is created. The dust of the factory is packed and sent to Macedonia. In the lamination factory, we invested in using liquid gas instead of solar, with a 1.5 million EUR fund. Everything is monitored and there are no poisonous gases being released. Our staff is made of families that live in Elbasan and we are as interested as the citizens on this situation”, says Melih Gurmen, the general vice director of Kurum.

The director denies that filters are switched off during the night in order to save energy.

“Our factory works with an electric oven that works in parallel with the system. We work in third shifts just because the energy by night is lower. Every institution can monitor the functionality of our system, because it is on our benefit to have this process active. The nature of this process is what pollutes the environment if rules are not implemented. We are doing everything possible to recycle the materials coming out of the process”, declared director Mehmet Cen.

Environmentalists say that the ferrochrome plant has no filter at all.

“Ferrochrome has not filters, because we have aspirators that clean the air where workers operate. The big installments that pollute most have no filters”, declared environmentalist Mehmeti.

What we know for sure is that the fatal diseases are increasing in this town, and black clouds are covering the city. This can be verified by the institutions of the Albanian citizens, which operate with the citizens’ money and must answer for their lives.

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