Thứ Tư, 13 tháng 10, 2010

Gates Spotlights Maritime Security in Hanoi Forum
By John D. Banusiewicz
American Forces Press Service
HANOI, Vietnam, Oct. 12, 2010 – Disagreements over territorial claims and the appropriate use of the maritime domain pose a challenge to stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told a group of regional defense ministers meeting here today.
Gates is one of eight defense leaders from nonmember nations invited to participate in the first “plus” defense ministers meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The 10-member association includes Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, Cambodia and Brunei.
In his remarks at the conference, Gates urged a peaceful resolution of territorial disputes that have beset the region, most notably in the South China Sea.
“The United States does not take sides on competing territorial claims, such as those in the South China Sea,” Gates said. “Competing claims should be settled peacefully, without force or coercion, through collaborative diplomatic processes, and in keeping with customary international law.”
The secretary applauded initial steps by nations with competing claims in the South China Sea to discuss development of a full and binding code of conduct on the matter, and he said the United States stands ready to help in facilitating such initiatives.
“We have a national interest in freedom of navigation, in unimpeded economic development and commerce, and in respect for international law,” he said. “We also believe that customary international law, as reflected in the [United Nations] Convention on the Law of the Sea, provides clear guidance on the appropriate use of the maritime domain, and rights of access to it. By adhering to this guidance, we can ensure that all share equal and open access to international waterways.”
Gates noted that the United States always has exercised its rights and supported the rights of others to transit through and operate in international waters. “This will not change,” he said, “nor will our commitment to engage in exercises and activities together with our allies and partners.”
Those activities, Gates said, are a routine and critical component of demonstrating the U.S. commitment to maintain peace and stability and promote freedom of navigation in the region.
“They are also essential to building habits of strong security cooperation,” he said, “which is necessary as we move forward to address common security challenges together.”

Thứ Ba, 12 tháng 10, 2010

Thảm họa bùn đỏ tại Hungary



http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/pictures/2010/10/101009_hungary_sludge_gallery.shtml
Thủ tướng Hungary, Viktor Orban, mô tả vụ tràn bùn đỏ độc hại
là một "thảm họa sinh thái nghiêm trọng" khi tới thăm khu làng bị thiệt hại là Kolontar vào hôm thứ Năm 7/10.
Khoảng 600 đến 700 ngàn mét khối bùn đỏ đã bị tràn ra khỏi nhà máy nhôm, cách thủ đô Budapest chừng 160km, và ảnh hưởng một khu vực rộng chừng 40km vuông.
Giới chức Hungary nói sẽ phải mất hàng chục triệu dollar và ít nhất một năm mới có thể dọn dẹp những thiệt hại do vụ tràn bùn đỏ công nghiệp độc hại gây ra.

thứ năm, 7 tháng 10, 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/av/2010/10/101007_hungary_pm_sludge.shtml

Chuyên gia châu Âu giúp xử lý bùn đỏ

Tường của hồ chứa thứ hai đã bị nứt
Người ta đang chạy đua với thời gian để xây một hàng rào bảo vệ chống đợt vỡ thứ hai
Các chuyên gia từ Liên hiệp châu Âu bắt đầu làm việc tại Hungary để xử lý với vụ tràn bùn đỏ bauxite, vốn đã làm cho bảy người thiệt mạng và phá hủy nhiều vùng rộng lớn.
Đơn vị bảo vệ thường dân của EU sẽ hành động nhằm khôi phục các khu vực bị phá hủy và đánh giá thêm các rủi ro.
Quan ngại chính hiện nay là làm thế nào để giảm bớt tác động của một vụ vỡ hồ chứa tiếp theo, vốn là điều mà các quan chức cho là không thể tránh khỏi.
Người ta đang vội vã xây một tường thành bảo vệ bằng đất đá nhằm đối phó với đợt tràn bùn tiếp theo.
Ngoài 7 người thiệt mạng, còn có 150 người bị thương sau khi 700 ngàn mét khối bùn đỏ bauxite tràn ra từ hồ chứa gần Ajka ở phía tây Hungary hôm 4/10.
Lo ngại
Phóng viên BBC, Nick Thorpe, tại Ajka nói Hungary đã đề nghị cụ thể phải có sự giúp đỡ của các chuyên gia châu Âu, sau khi nước này vật lộn để đánh giá các hậu quả về môi trường và y tế của bùn đỏ đang tràn ra khu vực rộng chừng 40km vuông, trong đó có một số thị trấn và làng mạc.
Bùn đỏ là dư chất của nhiều năm sản xuất oxit nhôm.
Bùn này có hàm lượng alkaline và kim loại nặng rất cao. Phóng viên BBC nhận định nhiệm vụ đầu tiên của các chuyên gia quốc tế là đánh giá mức độ nguy hiểm đối với nguồn nước, đất đai và cả không khí khi bùn khô lại.
Một quan chức Hungary nói đợt vỡ hồ chứa thứ hai là điều 'không thể tránh khỏi'
Đơn vị bảo vệ thường dân sau đó sẽ tìm cách khôi phục môi trường tự nhiên tại những khu vực bị phá hủy và tìm cách ngăn ngừa thêm những đe dọa có thể xảy ra.
Mối quan ngại chính hiện nay là chuyện vỡ hồ chứa chất thải thứ hai.
Bộ trưởng về Môi trường Zoltan Illes nói hôm Chủ Nhật rằng khả năng vỡ hồ chứa là điều không thể tránh khỏi.
Người ta đang hi vọng rằng hàng rào bảo vệ xây bằng đất đá, dài 600m, dày 30m, được xây dựng ngay bên dưới hồ chứa này, sẽ giúp ngăn chặn đợt tràn bùn tiếp theo.
Nói chuyện tại hiện trường, ông Illes nhận xét: “Việc vỡ hồ chứa có thể xảy ra ngay bây giờ, ngày mai, hay ngày kia, ai mà biết được?”
Chỉ về phía điểm nứt, ông nói khi tường thành của hồ chứa vỡ thì nó có thể làm tràn ra từ “năm đến bảy triệu tấn bùn đỏ”.
Người phát ngôn của Thủ tướng Hungary, Viktor Orban, nói với đài truyền hình địa phương hôm thứ Hai là các quan chức hi vọng bức tường chắn khẩn cấp sẽ được hoàn thành vào thứ Ba.
Ông này cho biết: “Chúng tôi có 4000 người với 300 máy đang làm việc hết công suất để ngăn ngừa thảm kịch tiếp theo.”
Phóng viên BBC cho biết các quan chức đang hi vọng trời sẽ không mưa, vì nếu mưa thì bùn đỏ sẽ chứa nhiều nước hơn và khiến cho việc kiểm soát khó khăn hơn.

Thứ Năm, 7 tháng 10, 2010

Hungary spill reaches Raba river, not yet Danube

  • Rescue workers clear up toxic sludge in the flooded village of Devecser Reuters – Rescue workers clear up toxic sludge in the flooded village of Devecser, 150 km (93 miles) west of Budapest, …
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – A toxic red sludge spill from an alumina plant in western Hungary has reached the Raba river on Thursday but not yet the Danube, a major European waterway, the spokesman for Hungary's disaster agency said on Thursday.
Tibor Dobson said crews were battling to reduce the spill's alkaline content, which was still at around pH 9 -- above the normal, harmless level of between 6 and 8 -- when it reached the Raba at 0330 GMT (12:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday). The Raba flows into the Danube.
Dobson said the spill had killed fish in the Marcal river first hit by the pollution, which poured out of a containment reservoir of an alumina plant on Monday.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Hungary – Red sludge flowed into the Danube River on Thursday

KOLONTAR, Hungary – Red sludge flowed into the Danube River on Thursday, threatening a half-dozen nations along one of Europe's key waterways. Monitors took samples every few hour to measure damage from the toxic spill and emergency officials declared one Hungarian tributary dead.
As cleanup crews gathered deer carcasses and other wildlife from the villages in southwestern Hungary flooded by the industrial waste, environmental groups warned of long-term damage to the farming region's topsoil.
Conflicting information swirled about the dangers posed by the ankle-deep muck coating the most seriously hit areas after the collapse of a waste-storage reservoir at a nearby alumina plant Monday.
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences maintained that while the material was a continued hazard, its heavy metal concentrations were not considered dangerous to the environment.
"The academy can say whatever it wants," fumed Barbara Szalai Szita, who lives in Devecser, one of the hardest-hit villages. "All I know is that if I spend 30 minutes outside I get a foul taste in my mouth and my tongue feels strange."
Hungary's environment minister, Zoltan Illes, said the henna-colored sludge covering a 16-square-mile swathe of countryside does have "a high content of heavy metals," some of which can cause cancer. He warned of possible environmental hazards, particularly if it were to enter the groundwater system.
With rain giving way to dry, warmer weather over the past two days, the caustic mud is increasingly turning to airborne dust, which can cause respiratory problems, Illes added.
"If that would dry out then ... wind can blow ... that heavy metal contamination through the respiratory system," he said.
Amid the conflicting reports, officials had one piece of encouraging news: The mighty Danube was apparently absorbing the slurry with little immediate harm beyond sporadic sightings of dead fish.
The red sludge, a waste product of aluminum production, reached the western branch of the Danube early Thursday and was flowing into its broad main stretch by noon. By evening, it was moving southward toward Serbia and Romania.
At monitoring stations in Croatia, Serbia and Romania, officials were taking river samples every few hours, though experts hoped the river's huge water volume would blunt the impact of the spill.
Hungarian rescue agency spokesman Tibor Dobson said the pH content of the sludge entering the Danube had been reduced to the point where it was unlikely to cause further environmental damage. The waste, which had tested at a highly alkaline pH level of 13 soon after the spill — similar to lye or bleach — was under 10 by Thursday.
A neutral pH level for water is 7, with normal readings ranging from 6.5 to 8.5. Each pH number is 10 times the previous level, so a pH of 13 is 1,000 times more alkaline than a pH of 10.
The tributaries feeding the Danube from the area around the spill were not so fortunate. The Marcal River, stained ochre and devoid of fish and other aquatic life, was declared a dead zone.
"Life in the Marcal River has been extinguished," Dobson said of the waterway, which is fed by streams around the accident site and carried the waste into the Raba River, which then flows into the Danube.
He said emergency crews were pouring plaster and acetic acid — vinegar — into the area where the Raba and Danube meet to lower the sludge's pH value.
"The main effort is now being concentrated on the Raba and the Danube," he said. "That's what has to be saved."
An AP television crew watching cleanup efforts at the confluence of the Raba and the Danube said neither river showed visible signs of pollution.
An environmental group that monitors threats to the Danube said the breached reservoir was on a 2006 watch list of some 100 industrial sites that were at risk for accidents that could contaminate the 1,775-mile-long river. The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River coordinates conservation efforts in the nations bordering the waterway and its tributaries.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, visiting the village of Kolontar, where homes and fields were coated with sludge, described the reservoir break as a disaster unprecedented in Hungary.
"If this had happened at night then everyone here would have died," he told the MTI news agency. "This is so irresponsible that it is impossible to find words."
Soldiers, emergency workers and volunteers dressed in mud-splattered protective gear kept shoveling out the muck Thursday, a process officials said could take months.
The long-term effects on the agricultural region were devastating, officials said. Some 2,000 acres of topsoil will have to be dug up and replaced because the highly alkaline sludge had killed off all the nutrients and organisms needed to keep the soil healthy, according to Illes, the environment minister.
It is still not known what caused a section of the reservoir to collapse, unleashing a torrent of some 35 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters) of sludge that killed at least four people and left three missing. More than 150 people were treated for burns and other injuries, and 11 remained in serious condition Thursday.
However, meteorologists at AccuWeather.com suggested unusually high precipitation might have been a factor, saying spring and summer rainfall in areas of central Europe from Poland to southern Hungary was more than 200 percent above normal.
The walls holding back the sludge may have been weakened by the rain, contributing to the breach that released the spill, the agency said.
MAL Rt., the Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company, which owns the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant where the spill occurred, has rejected criticism it should have taken more precautions at the reservoir.
However, Hungary's National Investigation Office, which is investigating the spill, said it planned to look into whether on-the-job carelessness was a factor.
The huge reservoir, more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) long and 1,500 feet (450 meters) wide, was no longer leaking by Thursday and a triple-tiered protective wall was being built around its damaged section. Guards were posted to give an early warning in case of any new emergency.
That did not calm the fears of villagers who lived through the disaster, many of whom said they planned to leave.
Etel Stampf was in her backyard when the first waves of the flood hit her home in Kolontar. She climbed on the roof of her pigsty to survive, but the flooding was so high that one of her legs was badly burned as it dangled in the caustic water.
"If I don't die now, I never will," the 76-year-old woman recalled thinking as she clung to the fragile structure.
"We worked so hard for years to have something for ourselves and now it's all gone," Stampf said. "I don't want to stay here. Ten years from now there will be nothing left of this town."
___
Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Alison Mutler in Bucharest, Romania, contributed to this report.

Hungary opens criminal probe into sludge disaster

Hungary opens criminal probe into sludge disaster
People salvage their belongings from their house flooded by toxic red mud in Kolontar, 167 kms southwest of Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010. AP

Hungary opens criminal probe into sludge disaster

2 days ago at 18:53 | Associated Press
KOLONTAR, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's top investigative agency opened a criminal probe into the toxic sludge flood Wednesday while the European Union and environmental groups warned the disaster could spread down the Danube and have long-term consequences for half a dozen nations.

Hundreds of people had to be evacuated after a gigantic sludge reservoir burst Monday at a metals plant in Ajka, a town 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest, the capital.

At least four people were killed, three are still missing and 120 were injured as the unstoppable torrent inundated homes, swept cars off roads, damaged bridges and disgorged an estimated 1 million cubic meters (35 million cubic feet) of toxic waste onto several nearby towns.

It was still not known Wednesday why part of the reservoir failed. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said authorities were caught off guard by the disaster since the plant and reservoir had been inspected only two weeks earlier and no irregularities had been found.

Police spokeswoman Monika Benyi told The Associated Press that the decision by National Police Chief Jozsef Hatala to take over the probe reflected the importance and the complexity of the sludge disaster. She said a criminal case had been opened into possible on-the-job carelessness.

The huge reservoir was no longer leaking Wednesday but a triple-tiered protective wall was being built around the reservoir's damaged area. Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said guards have been posted at the site ready to give early warning in case of any new emergency.

The European Union said it feared the toxic flood could turn into an ecological disaster for several nations along the mighty Danube and said it stood ready to offer help if Hungarian authorities needed it.

"This is a serious environmental problem," EU spokesman Joe Hennon told the AP in Brussels. "We are concerned, not just for the environment in Hungary, but this could potentially cross borders."

South of Hungary, the Danube flows through Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Moldova before emptying into the Black Sea.

Greenpeace was even more emphatic.

The sludge spill is "one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years," said Herwit Schuster, a spokesman for Greenpeace International.

Greenpeace workers took sludge samples on Tuesday and were having them tested in labs in Vienna and Budapest to find out how contaminated the sludge is by heavy metals.

"It is clear that 40 sq. kilometers (15.5 square miles) of mostly agricultural land is polluted and destroyed for a long time," Schuster said. "If there are substances like arsenic and mercury, that would affect river systems and ground water on long-term basis."

Emergency workers were pouring 1,000 tons of plaster into the nearby Marcal River to try to bind the sludge and keep it from flowing into the Danube, 45 miles (72 kilometers) away. Pinter said engineers considered diverting the Marcal into nearby fields but decided not to, fearing the damage from the diversion would not outweigh the benefits.
Workers were extracting sludge from the river and using plaster and acid to neutralize the toxic chemicals. Initial pH measurements showed the Marcal was at an extremely alkaline value of 13 after the spill, Pinter said.

Emergency workers and construction crews in hazmat gear swept through the hardest-hit Hungarian towns Wednesday, straining to clear roads and homes coated by thick red sludge and caustic muddy water.

In Kolontar, the town nearest to the plant, a military construction crew assembled a pontoon bridge across a toxic stream so residents could briefly return to their homes and rescue belongings.

But Kolontar mayor Karoly Tily said he cannot give a "reassuring answer" to residents, who fear a repeat of Monday's calamity.

The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube, which manages the river, agreed that sludge spill could certainly trigger long-term damaging effects for wildlife in and along the river.

"It is a very serious accident and has potential implications for other countries," Philip Weller, the executive secretary, said from Brussels.

The Danube, at 1,775 miles (2,850 kilometers) long, is Europe's second largest river and holds one of the continent's greatest treasuries of wildlife. The river has already been the focus of a multibillion dollar post-communist cleanup, but high-risk industries such as Hungary's Ajkai Timfoldgyar alumina plant, where the disaster occurred, are still producing waste near some of its tributaries.

Weller said the commission's early warning alarm system was triggered by the spill, which means factories and towns along the Danube may have to shut down their water intake systems from the river. The Vienna-based commission was waiting for further details of the spill from Hungarian authorities, he said.

He said large fish in the Danube could ingest the metals and then transfer them to humans who eat the fish.

The ecological catastrophe has already left a trail of shattered lives in its wake.

There was no stopping the avalanche of toxic red sludge when it rammed into Kati Holtzer's home in Kolontar: It smashed through the main door and trapped the woman and her 3-year-old boy in a churning sea of acrid waste.

She saved her son by placing him on a sofa that was floating in the muck. She then called her husband Balazs, who was working in Austria, to say goodbye.

"We're going to die," she told him, chest-deep in sludge.

After the terror came the pain: Holtzer and her two rescuers were among those suffering from biting chemical burns. Half the house was painted red from the sludge.

Worst of all, her fox terrier Mazli — "Luck" in Hungarian — lay dead in the yard Wednesday, still chained to a stake.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/85271/#ixzz11ieqIbVv

Death toll rises to three in Hungary sludge flood

3 days ago at 18:27 | Associated Press
DEVECSER, Hungary (AP) — A third person has died in flooding caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary, rescue services said Tuesday.

Six people were missing and 120 injured in what officials said was an ecological disaster.

The sludge, a waste product in aluminum production, contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested. Many of the injured sustained burns as the sludge seeped through their clothes. Two of the injured were in life threatening condition. An elderly woman, a young man and a 3-year-old child were killed in the flooding.

The chemical burns caused by the sludge could take days to reveal themselves and what may seem like superficial injuries could later cause damage to deeper tissue, Peter Jakabos, a doctor on duty at a hospital in Gyor where several of the injured were taken, said on state television.


A Hungarian woman cries in front of her toxic mud flooded home in the town of Devecser, Hungary, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010. (AP)

Seven towns, including Kolontal, Devecser and Somlovasarhely, were affected near the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in the town of Ajka, 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest, the capital.

The government declared a state of emergency in three counties affected by the flooding. Several hundred tons 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 (1 million cubic meters) of sludge has leaked from the reservoir and affected an estimated area of 15.4 square miles (40 square kilometers), Environmental Affairs State Secretary Zoltan Illes told state news wire MTI.

Illes suspended the plant's activity and ordered the company to repair the damaged reservoir.

He said the incident was an "ecological catastrophe" and it was feared that the sludge could reach the Raba and Danube rivers.

MAL Rt., the Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company, which owns the Ajka plant, said that according to European Union standards, the red sludge was not considered toxic waste.


An aerial photo taken Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010 shows the ruptured wall of a red sludge reservoir of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in Kolontar, 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest, Hungary. (AP)

"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.

On Tuesday morning, the sludge in Tunde Erdelyi's house in Devecser was still five feet (1.5 meters) high and rescue workers used an ax 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," said a tearful Erdelyi, still shocked by the events but grateful that she had been able to save a family rabbit and that her cat was found wet and shivering in the attic.


Tunde Erdelyi is seen in her yard flooded by toxic mud in the town of Devecser, Hungary, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010. (AP)

Robert Kis, Erdelyi's husband, said his uncle had been taken to Budapest, the capital, by helicopter after the sludge "burned him to the bone."

The flood overturned Erdelyi's car and pushed it some 30 yards to the back of the garden while her husband's van was lifted on to a fence.

"We still have some copper in the garage that we could sell to make a living for a while," Kis said as he attempted to appraise the damage to his house and belongings. Erdelyi, a seamstress, was hoping the flood has spared the shop in town where she worked, her family's main source of income.

In neighboring Kolontal, the town closest to the aluminium plant, 61-year old widow Erzsebet Veingartner was in her kitchen when the sludge flood hit on Monday afternoon.

"I looked outside and all I saw was the stream swelling like a huge wave," said Veingartner, who lives on a monthly disability pension of 70,000 forints ($350). "Thank God I had the presence of mind to turn off the gas and run up to the attic."

Veingartner was devastated by her losses, her backyard still covered by some 3 meters (yards) of red sludge.

"I have a winter's worth of firewood in the basement and it's all useless now," said Veingartner, whose son lives in Devecser and was also suffering the consequences of the disaster. "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."

The disaster agency said 390 residents had to be temporarily relocated and 110 were rescued from the flooded towns, where firefighters and soldiers were carrying out cleanup tasks.

Local environmentalists said that for years they had been calling the government's attention to the risks of red sludge, which in a 2003 report they estimated at 30 million tons.

"Accumulated during decades ... red sludge is, by volume, the largest amount of toxic waste in Hungary," the Clear Air Action Group said, adding that the production of one ton of alumina resulted in two tons of toxic waste.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/85107/#ixzz11ieV8Zj4

Hungary declares emergency after red sludge spill

3 days ago at 21:39 | Reuters
KOLONTAR, Hungary, Oct. 5 (Reuters) - Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties on Tuesday, a day after a torrent of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant tore through nearby villages, killing four people and injuring 120.

The waste, produced during bauxite refining, poured through Kolontar and two other villages on Monday after bursting out of a containment reservoir at the Ajkai Timfoldgyar Zrt plant, owned by MAL Zrt.

On Tuesday, the Natural Disaster Unit (NDU) said four more villages were affected and put the death toll at four. Six people were missing.

Others suffered from burns and eye irritations caused by lead and other corrosive elements in the mud. The flood, estimated at about 700,000 cubic metres (24 million cubic feet), swept cars off roads and damaged bridges and houses, forcing the evacuation of about 400 residents.

"We have declared a state of emergency in Veszprem, Gyor-Moson-Sopron and Vas counties," government spokeswoman Anna Nagy said. "In Veszprem county, it's because that is the scene of the disaster and the sludge is headed towards the other two counties."

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the spill may have been caused by human error.

"We have no information at our disposal... we do not know of any sign which indicates that this disaster would have natural causes," Orban said. "And if a disaster has no natural causes, then it can be considered a disaster caused by people. We suspect that this may be the case."

He said tests had shown there was no threat of radiation.

People in Kolontar, which lies closest to the burst reservoir, were trying to recover their belongings but police were not yet letting them back into their flooded homes.

"My bathtub is full of this sludge ... when the dam burst, it made a terrible noise. I was in my yard, and I had to run up the steps to the porch but the water was rising faster than I could run," Ferenc Steszli, 60, told Reuters.

He said he escaped by standing on a table.

Farmland around the village was covered in the sludge and many livestock were killed.


PROTECTING THE DANUBE

The disaster unit said clean-up crews were pouring plaster into a nearby river to help neutralise the spill and attempts were being made to prevent the sludge getting into the Danube, a major European waterway.

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, polluting the Tisza and Danube rivers.

"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," Katerina Ventusova, a Greenpeace expert for toxics told Reuters at the scene.

MAL Zrt said in a statement there had been no sign of the impending disaster and that the red sludge did not qualify as hazardous waste according to European Union standards.

The NDU defined the red mud on its website as: "A by-product of alumina production. The thick, highly alkaline substance has a caustic effect on the skin. The sludge contains heavy metals, such as lead, and is slightly radioactive. Inhaling its dust can cause lung cancer." It recommended people clean off the sludge with water to neutralise the substance.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/85142/#ixzz11ieAQVlb

Toxic Hungarian sludge spill reaches River Danube

Reuters – An elderly man tries to clean up his home in the flooded village of Devecser, 150 km (93 miles) west …
By Marton Dunai Marton Dunai – Thu Oct 7, 1:16 pm ET
GYOR, Hungary (Reuters) – Toxic red sludge from a Hungarian alumina plant reached the Danube on Thursday and crews struggled to dilute it to protect the river from what the prime minister called an "unprecedented ecological catastrophe."
Experts said damage beyond the borders of Hungary was unlikely to be great but the threat had to be monitored closely.
Tibor Dobson, a spokesman for Hungarian disaster crews, told Reuters there were sporadic fish deaths in the Raba and the Mosoni-Danube rivers. He said all fish had died in the smaller Marcal River, which was hit by the spill first.
Crews were working to reduce the alkalinity of the spill, which poured out of the burst containment reservoir of an alumina plant on Monday and tore through local villages, killing four people and injuring over 150. Three are still missing.
The spill's alkaline content when it reached the Raba, the Mosoni-Danube and the Danube itself, was still around pH 9 -- above the normal, harmless level of between 6 and 8.
Fresh data from the water authority on national news agency MTI showed pH levels peaking at 9.65 in the Mosoni-Danube river at the city of Gyor. They were measured at 8.4 in the Danube.
Crews were pouring hundreds of tonnes of plaster and acetic acid into the rivers to neutralize the alkalinity.
In Gyor, a city in the northwest of Hungary where the Raba flows into the Mosoni-Danube, a Reuters reporter saw white froth on the river and many dead fish washed ashore.
Philip Weller, executive secretary to the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), a Vienna-based U.N. body, said most damage was local.
"It is clear that the consequences of this are greatest in the local area and that the implications on a trans-boundary level, we understand, will not be significant which doesn't mean they don't exist," he said.
"The Hungarian authorities took a number of measures to reduce the toxicity, they added substances to neutralize the material, they also constructed some underwater weirs to slow the mud and maintain it and contain it as much as possible in the Hungarian territory of the river system."
It also helps that the Danube is a large river with a very high volume of water, he added.
Gabor Figeczky, Hungarian branch director of the WWF environmental group said:
"Based on our current estimates, it (pollution) will remain contained in Hungary, and we also trust that it will reach Budapest with acceptable pH values."
Downstream from the disaster site, the Danube flows through or skirts Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian territory en route to the Black Sea.
Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties on Tuesday after the torrent of caustic waste sludge from bauxite refining hit Kolontar, Devecser and other villages 160 km (100 miles) west of Budapest.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban visited Kolontar on Thursday and said there was no point in even removing the rubble from part of the village as it was impossible to live there again.
"It is difficult to find the words. Had this happened at night, everybody would be dead," he told reporters.
"CATASTROPHE"
"This is an unprecedented ecological catastrophe in Hungary. Human error is more than likely. The wall (of the reservoir) did not disintegrate in a minute. This should have been detected."
MAL Zrt, owner of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar alumina plant and the burst reservoir, said the last inspection of the reservoir on Monday had shown nothing wrong.
Disaster crews, military and local villagers were clearing away the rubble and searching for the three missing people.
Many people suffered burns and eye ailments caused by the caustic mud. The flood, estimated at about 700,000 cubic meters (24 million cubic feet), swept cars off roads and damaged bridges and houses.
MAL said it hoped to restart production at its alumina plant at the weekend with a new sludge containment pond.
Many people in Kolontar said they would not move back to their houses as they did not feel secure.
"I hung in the sludge for 45 minutes... It had a strong current that almost swept me away but I managed to hang on to a strong piece of wood from the pigsty," said Etelka Stump.
"But I could hardly breathe because that air, that smell, that froth really hit me. I know what it's like because I worked in the bauxite factory for 17 years."
(Reporting by Marton Dunai and Gergely Szakacs; additional reporting from Vienna and Belgrade; writing by Krisztina Than; editing by Andrew Roche)