The mine owners responsible for the cyanide leak in Guyana (see Down To Earth, Vol 4, No 9) are now making a hectic bid to prove to the world that the calamity in the Omai'mine was an industrial accident, and not an environmental disaster.

Louis Gignac, pregident of Cambior, the Canadian company that owns 65, per cent of Omai and is the operator, has said that an independent report on the environmental leakage prepared for the Guyana government has found no evidence that any animal has died as a result. Only 400 fish had been killed in the Omai river, a tributary of the larger Essequibo, which is the main source of food and water for the Guyanese people. The flow of the river was so powerful that the cyanide was diluted immediately, says the report.