There have been unconfirmed reports of a large spill of toxic waste in the New Berlin system.
Sizeable quantites of poisonous and possibly radioactive industrial waste are adrift in the Harzfeld.
Experts warn of grave environmental implications should these pollutants come into contact with humans. However there appears to be little chance of them drifting into Planet New Berlin's gravity well.
<span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%]Malicious Moles Making Mess?
The Liberty Government may be behind the dumping of life-threatening toxic waste in the heart of Rheinland.
An anonymous caller has just contacted our Stuttgart desk, claiming to have observed a ship piloted by undercover Liberty agents dumping radiocative waste in the Harzfeld.
The local authorities were unavailable for comment.
# VISUAL STREAM OPENS # # COMM ID : Schmied, Ralf #
To all employees of ALG Waste Disposal,
unconfirmed reports are speaking of large amounts of dangerous toxic waste somewhere in the Harzfeld. Some of these reports even go so far to blame Liberty for this inexplicable incident.
I hereby order all available hazard containment units to the Harzfeld to examine this area and to investigate probable sources.
The hall was filled with reporters from all over Sirius. All were waiting for Ralf Schmied to make an announcement to the situation in the Harzfeld, New Berlin. Many of the people have heard about a terrible accident, some sort of pollution and so on. Some even went as far to say there were dangerous nuclear asteroid moles within the Harzfeld, which was, of course, just some weird conspiracy theory.
Schmied did his suit and stepped to the podium. When he opened his speech everybody listened to his voice mesmerisedly.
Honoured people of Rheinland and visitors from the other houses: I know why you are here! You want an explanation of the incident within the Harzfeld. First of all, let it be clear that many teams of ALG Waste Disposal as well as military and intelligence specialists are working inside the Harzfeld, in order to keep New Berlin and its people safe. If some of you wrote about some upcoming mass panic, I want to reassure you and affirm that there is absolutely no threat for the system.
In order to keep traders safe, the Marinenachrichtendienst put the Harzfeld under quarantine and all vessels passing between New Berlin and Brandenburg Border Station are ordered to NOT leave the trade lanes within the Harzfeld.
A Bretonian reporter stood up an rose his hand.
Good afternoon Mr.Schmied, I am Alistair Whitaker from the Cambridge Daily Star. Could you please tell us the exact reason of all of this? I mean you are talking about all the measures and stuff, but you didn't lose any word about the reasons.
Damn! Schmied thought. He knew that he was ordered by the MND to keep absolute silence to the reason. The MND agents, which arrived shortly after the ALG vessel "Econic" forced him to say nothing, because of the importance of the true reason, which seemed to be some kind of advanced technology related with deep space mining and processing. The MND Department of Public Relation and Political Leverage gave him an alternative explanation in case the reporters would ask.
Well mein Herr, the very reason for this measures was some collision between two asteroids, which cores were filled with some really rare Uranium isotope. The nature of this isotope is extremely dangerous. The radiation levels are over a hundered times higher than those from, for example, Plutonium or Unobtanium.
The masses murmured, when some old and wiry man stepped next to Schmied.
Meine Damen und Herren, there is absolutely no reason to panic. As Herr Schmied already mentioned, dozens of military and scientific specialists are working all around the clock, in order to contain this dangerous material. Furthermore ALG Waste Disposal is transporting all the hazardous material to a facility, where it can be examined and reprocessed.
Only few recognised this old man. It was Leopold Thauer, director of the MND who showed up personally on this press conference. Those who recognised him, supposed that his occurence questioned this official explanation of the incident within the Harzfeld.