AFP – A man wades through his mud-soaked garden in Devecser. Hungary is scrambling to contain a toxic mud spill
BUDAPEST (AFP) – Hungary scrambled Wednesday to contain a toxic mud spill that left four people dead and more than 100 injured in what is being described as an "ecological catastrophe" for the region around the Danube river.
"We've been working to neutralise the rivers since yesterday and we're already getting good results showing that alkaline levels in the water are falling," a spokewoman for the disaster relief services Timea Petroczi told AFP.
"We've got 500 people involved in the clean-up today. We're using high-pressure water jets to clean roads and houses."
Two adults and two young children were killed on Monday when the walls of a reservoir of residue at an aluminium plant in Ajka in western Hungary broke, sending a tidal wave of slightly radioactive, highly corrosive sludge through seven nearby villages.
While the death toll has not risen so far, out of 123 injured, eight people are in serious condition in hospital suffering from burns and another 53 also remain hospitalised.
Originally, six people had been feared missing, but that number has been revised downwards to three, Petroczi said.
The stinking red sludge left a path of devastation across 40 square kilometres (15.4 square miles), leading the interior ministry to declare a state of emergency in three counties.
The two-metre (six-and-a-half-foot) tide of mud overturned cars, swept away possessions and has raised fears that pollution leeching from it could reach the Danube River, which courses through Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine before flowing into the Black Sea.
The mud destroyed all vegetation other than trees and seeped into hundreds of houses in seven villages, leaving residents asking when they could return.
In Kolontar, one of the villages affected, the army had to build a temporary bridge to replace one that was swept away by the flood.
Petroczi confirmed the drinking water system had not been affected so far, but "as a precautionary measure, people are not allowed to use the water wells," she said.
Residents were also banned from eating any home-grown produce or from hunting or fishing in the region, she said.
Environment state secretary Zoltan Illes, who visited the area on Tuesday, described the accident as "an ecological catastrophe" and the worst chemical accident in the country's history.
The red mud is a toxic residue left over from aluminium production. It is slightly radioactive, highly corrosive and contains toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium.
Coppied by http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101006/wl_afp/hungaryaccidentchemical
No comments:
Post a Comment