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Sludge Disaster in Hungary
On October 4, 2010, about one hundred miles south of Budapest, a series of small Hungarian towns experienced, what Greenpeace would later refer to as, one of the top three European environmental disasters in the last twenty years. The disaster came in the form of a wide spread toxic spill, which occurred after a sludge reservoir ruptured at MAL co., a local aluminum plant. The rupture in the dam allowed for 35 million cubic feet of waste to pour into several nearby towns. The main towns affected included Kolontar, Devecser and Ajka, but many other areas felt the effects of the spill and had to be evacuated. The sludge, which was highly toxic, carried with it a variety of toxic metals and a dangerously high alkaline value. The thick, red sludge cornered residents, filled homes, buried vehicles, threatened local animals and caused a great deal of structural damage. This destruction alone was enough for the event to be considered a disaster, but in actuality, the destruction was only the beginning. Once the sludge stopped its crippling rampage, officials and rescuers were able to discover that the event brought about an estimated death toll of 10 residents, along with another 120 who were injured. Among the main injuries from the sludge spill were chemical burns, which were a result of sludge finding its way through clothing and saturating the skin. Though the effects of the sludge on the various small communities were to be considered a serious concern, on a larger scale, the sludge disaster posed a much more broad threat.
According to the European Union the flood of toxic sludge had the potential to become an ecological disaster that affects many European nations; a danger created by the river systems in Hungary and nearby countries. The sludge had already flowed into Hungary's Marcal River, but was in danger of flowing into the larger Danube River. The Danube passes through Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Moldova and subsequently, many environmental officials feared that if the sludge reached the river, all of these countries were in danger of contamination. In an effort to prevent this from happening, local workers were forced to pour a thousand tons of plaster into the Marcal River, which turned the sludge into a more solid, non-flowing entity. Though the Hungary government acted as quickly and efficiently as possible, the threat of long standing environmental damage in the Danube River remained. Cities located along the river were forced to take cautionary action by shutting down their water intake systems and the effects of the chemicals on river dwelling species had catastrophic potential. An additional long term effect of the sludge disaster included more than 15 square miles of destroyed farming land; the effects on soil could last for several years depending on the level of contamination.
The severity of this disaster, along with all of the long term damage that it had the potential to create, forced Hungarian government officials to investigate this incident as a criminal act of negligence. After a criminal probe was conducted, it was determined that the incident could have been prevented. As a result, the Zoltan Kakonyi, one of the main executives of MAL co. was arrested and charged with public endangerment and harming the environment.
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