XPost: can.politics, alt.politics.europe   
   From: CoalitionForCanada@notshaw.ca   
      
    Postmedia News - October 9, 2010   
      
    Devastated Hungary braces for possibility of another toxic spill   
      
      
   BUDAPEST, Hungary — Only hours after experts expressed relief that acidity   
   levels in the Danube   
   appeared to be falling in the wake of last week’s toxic waste spill,   
   Hungarians are bracing for   
   a new wave of calamity as another wall of the waste reservoir containing   
   poisonous sludge shows   
   signs of bursting.   
   “Probably today, the (reservoir’s) wall could come down,” said Hungarian Prime   
   Minister Viktor   
   Orban on Saturday during a visit to the Ajkai Timfoldgyar alumina plant in   
   northwestern Hungary   
   where an earlier spill of 700,000 cubic metres of toxic waste from the same   
   reservoir’s   
   northeast corner flooded and devastated the countryside.   
      
   “Cracks have (now) appeared on the northern wall of the reservoir, which makes   
   it very likely   
   the entire wall will collapse.”   
      
   Because the failing reservoir still contains as much as 500,000 cubic metres   
   of toxic waste —   
   70 per cent of the volume of the initial spill — experts fear the wall’s utter   
   collapse will   
   bring a repeat of Monday’s devastation in which torrents of poisonous sludge   
   engulfed over 800   
   hectares of farmland and three villages and in the process killed seven   
   people, injured more   
   than 120, and displaced hundreds.   
      
   News of another potential flood of toxic waste is being met with dread and   
   disbelief among   
   Hungarians, still reeling from last week’s horrors, which experts are calling   
   one of the worst   
   environmental disasters in central European history.   
      
   “Hungary has never experienced a tragedy like this,” admitted Orban, speaking   
   outside a fire   
   station in the village of Ajkai, “and we are astonished.”   
      
   Even though efforts to reinforce the reservoir are underway, experts are   
   taking no chances.   
      
   The village of Kolontar, rendered a virtual wasteland from the first flood,   
   has already been   
   evacuated, and residents in neighbouring Devecser, approximately four   
   kilometres away, were   
   being moved from the area on Saturday afternoon.   
      
   Some locals are being evacuated for the second time and Devecser’s Mayor Tamas   
   Toldi admits   
   that they may not have anything to return to after the crisis is over.   
      
   Toldi explained that red toxic sludge has engulfed scores of houses, gutting   
   interiors and   
   extinguishing all life in yards, fields, and gardens. “People have lost their   
   livelihood and   
   their homes,” he said.   
      
   Eva Csobod, director of Budapest’s Regional Environmental Center, said most of   
   fatalities   
   occurred early in the initial flood before residents realized the corrosive   
   and poisonous   
   nature of the sludge that at first glance looked like dark red mud.   
      
   “At first people didn’t know what it was and walked right into it,” she said.   
      
   The first victims included two small children.   
      
   Now, six days later, locals have no illusions about the dangerous nature of   
   the sludge,   
   although no one seems to know just how badly the area has been poisoned.   
      
   “We can’t imagine the environmental impact of this because nothing like this   
   has happened   
   before,” said Toldi.   
      
      
   On Saturday, Orban confirmed the unprecedented nature of the calamity.   
      
   “We have no exact information about the nature of this (waste) material,”   
   Orban said.   
      
   “We can only make assumptions,” he said, referring to the speed and force of a   
   second round of   
   toxic flooding.   
      
   But given that the waste, the by-product of refining bauxite into aluminum,   
   may not have been   
   properly treated before being stored in outdoor ponds, the effluent that   
   inundated the area   
   could be more toxic than anticipated, making clean up more arduous, expensive   
   and complicated.   
      
   Toldi expressed doubt that “healthy food” could ever be grown again in the   
   neighbouring fields   
   of this largely agricultural area.   
      
      
   Even before fears of a second tidal flood was announced, Hungarian leaders   
   admitted cleaning up   
   the mess was probably beyond the country’s resources and that help from the   
   European Union   
   might be necessary.   
      
   But as this waste, made up of lead, arsenic, cadmium, and other heavy metals,   
   continues to sear   
   the Hungarian landscape, the citizens of this nation of 10 million are   
   expressing more rage   
   than pain.   
      
   Much anger is being focused on MAL Zrt., the Hungarian parent company that   
   owns the refinery at   
   Ajkai.   
      
   MAL Zrt. was criticized in the Hungarian press for reportedly requesting that   
   operations at the   
   plant be resumed only days after the first spill (the plant is still closed),   
   and for emergency   
   compensation to victims of about the equivalent of $512 per person that   
   critics considered   
   parsimonious.   
      
   Federal investigators are currently reviewing events at the plant that led to   
   the accident, and   
   although no findings have been issued, experts such as Csobod have little   
   doubt that human   
   error was responsible, although there is speculation a particularly rainy   
   summer in Hungary may   
   have contributed to a weakening of the waste reservoir’s banks.   
      
   Nevertheless, leaders vow there will be a reckoning for this unprecedented   
   disaster.   
      
   Declared Orban: “Someone has to answer for this.”   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)