State of emergency in Hungary as flood of toxic sludge engulfs towns

Published on Tuesday 5 October 2010 17:26

HUNGARY declared a state of emergency in three counties yesterday after a flood of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant engulfed several towns and burned people through their clothes. One official called it "an ecological disaster" that may threaten the Danube and other key rivers.

• An official of the disaster relief team checks water of the Torna stream at the bank in front of a damaged bridge of Kolontar village, about 160 kms south-west from Budapest. Pic: AFP/Getty

The toll rose to four dead, six missing and at least 120 people injured after a reservoir's boundaries failed late on Monday at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in Ajka, 100 miles south-west of the capital, Budapest.

Several hundred tonnes of plaster were being poured into the Marcal River to bind the toxic sludge and prevent it from flowing on, the National Disaster Management Directorate said.

So far, about 35.3 million cubic feet of sludge has leaked from the reservoir, affecting an estimated 15.4 square miles, Environmental Affairs State Secretary Zoltan Illes said.

Illes called the flood an "ecological catastrophe" and said the sludge could reach the Raba and Danube rivers. He suspended activity at the plant and ordered the company to repair the damaged reservoir.

The disaster agency said 390 residents had to be temporarily relocated and 110 were rescued from the flooded towns, including Kolontal, Devecser and Somlovasarhely. Firefighters and soldiers worked throughout the region yesterday carrying out clean-up tasks with bulldozers.

The sludge, a waste product in aluminium production, contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested. Many of the injured sustained burns as the sludge seeped through their clothes, and two are in life-threatening conditions. Two women, a young man and a three-year-old child were killed in the flooding.

The injured were being monitored because the chemical burns caused by the sludge could take days to emerge and what may seem like superficial injuries could later cause damage to deeper tissue, said Dr Peter Jakabos of Gyor hospital, where several of the injured were taken.

In Devecser, the sludge in Tunde Erdelyi's house was still five feet high in sludge yesterday and rescue workers had to use an axe to cut through her living room door to let the red liquid flow out.

"When I heard the rumble of the flood, all the time I had was to jump out the window and run to higher ground," she said, adding that she was still shocked by the events but grateful that the family rabbit and cat were safe.

Robert Kis, Erdelyi's husband, said his uncle had been taken to Budapest by helicopter after the sludge "burned him to the bone".The toxic flood overturned Erdelyi's car and pushed it 30 yards to the back of the garden, while her husband's van was lifted up on to a fence by the flow.

Erdelyi, a seamstress, was hoping the flood spared the shop in town where she worked, her family's main source of income.

In neighbouring Kolontal, the town closest to the aluminium plant, Erzsebet Veingartner, 61, a widow was in her kitchen when the sludge flood hit.

"I looked outside and all I saw was the stream swelling like a huge wave," she said. "Thank God I had the presence of mind to turn off the gas and run up to the attic."

Veingartner, devastated by her losses, looked out at her backyard still covered by some three yards of red sludge.

"I have a winter's worth of firewood in the basement and it's all useless now," she said.

"I lost all my chickens, my ducks, my Rottweiler, and my potato patch. My late husband's tools and machinery were in the shed and it's all gone."

Local environmentalists said they have tried to call the government's attention to the risks of red sludge for years, pointing to a 2003 report in which they estimated the waste at 30 million tonnes.

The Clear Air Action Group said: "Accumulated during decades … red sludge is, by volume, the largest amount of toxic waste in Hungary."

It added that producing one tonne of alumina resulted in two tonnes of toxic waste.

MAL Rt, the Hungarian company that owns the Ajka plant, said that according to European Union standards the red sludge was not considered toxic waste. The company also denied that it should have taken more precautions to shore up the reservoir.

"According to the current evaluation, company management could not have noticed the signs of the natural catastrophe nor done anything to prevent it even while carefully respecting technological procedures," MAL said in a statement.

A Greenpeace expert said the impact from the mud spill could be much worse than a cyanide spill at Baia Mare in Romania ten years ago, when cyanide-tainted water was discharged from a gold mine reservoir.

Katerina Ventusova said: "This disaster is seven times as large as the incident in Baia Mare. The ecological impact can be very wide and take a long time to neutralise because heavy metals and caustic soda form a very dangerous toxic mix."