Villagers' fury at firm behind disaster

Published on Thursday 7 October 2010 15:31

THE mood in the Hungarian village of Kolontar has turned from shock to anger, days after the toxic red sludge tore through its streets wrecking houses, sweeping away cars and killing at least four people.

"If you won't even own up to it now, just what do you think you're doing here then?" a woman screamed at a director of the local aluminium factory. "Why don't you take off your shoes and walk back to your factory right through the mess you caused?"

Villagers had gathered at a meeting on a hill overlooking the red-stained wasteland that had been their home. The director from MAL Zrt, the company whose reservoir burst its dam on Monday. unleashing the red tide, was making little headway.

"I feel that MAL has done everything it could to alleviate the damage," director Jozsef Deak said. "We will need to wait for the end of the investigation to establish precise responsibilities."

His soft-spoken words, amplified through the speakers of a police car, left many villagers growling.

There is nothing but two miles of flat farmland between Kolontar and the reservoir. When the dam burst, a terrible noise was followed by a surging tide of sludge that swept all before it.

Walls and lamp posts were stained red to a height of 5ft. Fences lay shattered, trees were uprooted, and cars swept away like wind-up toys.

"My neighbour… he heard the tide coming and rushed to the pigsty to get the animals outside," said Ferenc Steszli, a 60 year-old pensioner. "His mother helped him."

"They weren't fast enough. That vile river crushed them inside the pigsty, together with the pigs. He's still missing. She was found in the middle of the corn field back there."