Hundreds urged to wash clothes after UK nerve agent attack

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Hundreds urged to wash clothes after UK nerve agent attack

By Henry Nicholls and Alex Fraser

 

Soldiers wearing protective clothing remove a police vehicle from a car park in Salisbury, Britain, March 11, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

 

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) - Hundreds of people who visited the Zizzi restaurant or the Mill pub in the English city of Salisbury were told on Sunday to wash their clothes after traces of nerve agent used to attack a former Russian spy last week were found at both sites.

 

Public Health England said there was no immediate health risk to anyone who may have been in either the restaurant or the pub, but their was a small chance that any of the agent that had come into contact with clothing or belongings could still be present in minute amounts and contaminate skin.

 

Former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, have been in hospital in a critical condition since March 4, when they were found unconscious on a bench in the southern English cathedral city of Salisbury.

 

"We have now learned there has been some trace contamination by the nerve agent in both the Mill pub and Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury," chief medical offer Sally Davies said on Sunday.

 

She said she was confident that no one who was in the restaurant or the pub on March 4 or 5 had been harmed, but their clothing should be washed and personal items like phones wiped as a precaution against any long-term exposure to any substance.

 

Skripal and his daughter remained in a "critical but stable condition in intensive care," the chief executive of the local hospital said at a news conference.

 

A police officer who initially responded was "conscious and in a serious but stable condition," she added.

 

British police have said a nerve agent was used against Skripal and his daughter, but have not made public which one.

 

SMALL RISK

 

Public Health England said it had weighed new evidence before issuing its advice on Sunday, and it said the general public had not been at risk in the days since the attack.

 

"This is about a very, very small risk of repetitive contact for any traces of contamination that people may have taken out," Public Health England's deputy medical director Jenny Harries said at the same press conference.

 

"In risk terms one or two days is not what we are concerned about, what we are worrying about is whether there could be an ongoing risk that could build over the future."

 

Cordons were still around the restaurant and the pub on Sunday, and police could not say how long they would remain.

 

A number of police cars and other vehicles were removed from a local car park by soldiers wearing protective clothing and gas masks on Sunday, a Reuters eyewitness said.

 

Items from the Zizzi restaurant, including a table, had been removed and destroyed, the BBC said.

 

Local residents said they were concerned by the warnings about contamination issued to the people who had visited the venues.

 

"It's worried a lot of people," dog walker Phil Burt said. "This town is usually packed on a Sunday, but I think a lot of people are just staying away."

 

Many in British media and politics have speculated that Russia could have played a part in the attack on Skripal, but interior minister Amber Rudd said on Saturday it was too early to say who was responsible.

 

Skripal betrayed dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence before his arrest in Moscow in 2004. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006, and in 2010 was given refuge in Britain after being exchanged for Russian spies.

 

Finance minister Philip Hammond said Britain would respond "appropriately" if a foreign state is found to have been involved in the poisoning.

"This is a police investigation and it will be evidence-led and we must go where the evidence takes us," Hammond told BBC television on Sunday.

 

"So we have to allow the police investigation to run its course. But if there were to be an involvement of a foreign state evidenced by this investigation, then obviously that would be very serious indeed and the government would respond appropriately," he said.

 

(Reporting by Paul Sandle and William Schomberg; Editing by Mark Potter and David Evans)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-03-12

[Darcula]

Is this nerve agent scarier than soap? Just asking.

[overherebc]

3 minutes ago, Darcula said:

Is this nerve agent scarier than soap? Just asking.

Sitting next to some expats in a baht bus in pattaya would easily prove the point that soap is either scary or rare. ??

[overherebc]

54 minutes ago, overherebc said:

Sitting next to some expats in a baht bus in pattaya would easily prove the point that soap is either scary or rare. ??

According to many sites if it is a Sarin type agent it seems that lots of strong soapy water helps to remove it.

[brommers]

This will be the first time this year that those people have washed their clothes so it can only be a good thing for hygiene reasons. I notice they don't advise people to wash themselves, probably because they know that it is too early in the month for most people!

[overherebc]

32 minutes ago, brommers said:

This will be the first time this year that those people have washed their clothes so it can only be a good thing for hygiene reasons. I notice they don't advise people to wash themselves, probably because they know that it is too early in the month for most people!

That reminds me. Shower at the end of this month when things warm up a bit.

[overherebc]

Fair bit of scaremongering going on withe the whole thing.

One member of the public being interviewed wants to know what the long term effects will be on him and his family if he's been exposed to the agent.

If he had been exposed he would know.

First you start drooling then you collapse then everything lets go, you sh-t yourself pee yourself lose all muscle control convulsions set in and then no muscles work and your brain dies because it's

not getting blood or oxygen.

It's not a gas as many believe it's liquid spread in droplet form  or a mist ,in warfare, and skin contact with enough will do for you in two minutes.

If the russian guy and his daughter had a favourite table in the restaurant then just before they sat down someone somehow managed to get some on the table that would do it through skin contact.

Will be interesting when and if the details come out.

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by overherebc

[KKr]

While I keep on reading in amazement how this ( relatively small ) event is spun bigger and bigger activating fears of divided Britons to unite ..

Mrs. May can finally pretend to do something without being attacked for weak politics, and Putin has elections coming up.

Go figure ...