A senior Kyrgyz official appealed for urgent help to avert the danger posed by a Soviet-era uranium mine threatening Central Asia\'s densely populated and seismically unstable Ferghana Valley. \"Ecological catastrophe could hit the whole Ferghana Valley\" as a result of the mine on the banks of the Maily-Su river, which flows into Andzhan in neighbouring Uzbekistan, Amarkul Aitaliyev, a senior official at Kyrgyzstan\'s ecology and emergency situations ministry, told journalists. Aitaliyev\'s comments followed a Franco-Belgian investigation sponsored by the European Union into the disused mine. Observers have said has the mine and its environmental fallout have the potential to aggravate already tense relations in Ferghana -- Central Asia\'s main population centre shared by Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Uranium from the mine was enriched locally until its closure in 1960, and the resultant leftovers were buried in hillside pits, which are prone to flooding and could leak into the river due to frequent avalanches. Social stigma has become attached to residents of the impoverished Maily-Su district due to their alleged health problems resulting from the mine. \"In the event of natural disaster radiation levels in the Ferghana Valley could seriously worsen,\" Hildegarde Vandenhove of Belgium\'s Centre for Nuclear Research, said. The World Bank has allocated five million dollars (4.3 million euros) to a variety of preventive measures to be carried out in 2004 but much more money and expertise will be needed to fully stabilise the situation, Aitaliyev said. (AFP)