"They are a threat for the population because the administration has not taken any steps to isolate this radioactive material, or to clear or ban access to this garbage," Valery Kuznetsov told NTV television.

NTV showed footage from the Radon depots which are owned by the state Chechenneftekhimport oil company and part of storage centers which have been approved by the Russian state agency monitoring and storing radioactive substances.

"The investigation has established that there is a disastrous radioactive situation on the premises (of the destroyed combine)," the prosecutor's office said in a statement, dated Thursday, which was published on its Internet site.

The statement specifically mentions cobalt 60, used in cancer therapy and in industry for detecting flaws in metal parts.

"At the depot, radiation levels exceed authorized norms 58,000 times," it warned

The Grozny company, like most in the rebel Russian republic in the Caucasus, was destroyed after heavy bombardments in the first Chechen war between 1994 and 1996 and at the start of the second war in 1999.

People can still walk about it freely, said the prosecutor's office.

"The Chechnya prosecutor's office has opened a criminal case for disrespect of stockpiling rules for radioactive substances," said the prosecutor's office.

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