HUNGARY HAS seized control of the company that owns the toxic sludge reservoir that collapsed last week and questioned its chief executive, as the death toll rose to eight and the race continued to prevent a second spill.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, announced yesterday that his government would take over the management of MAL Rt, the Hungarian aluminium production and trade company, and freeze its assets, in order to hold those responsible for the disaster to account and ensure the firm paid damages and protected jobs at the alumina plant.
“We have good reason to suspect that there were some who were aware of the weakened state of the reservoir wall and chose to do nothing,” Mr Orban said.
In Devecser, one of three towns devastated by the spill about 160km (100 miles) southwest of Budapest, groups of anxious residents watched as heavy vehicles thundered down the damp clay-red high street towards the reservoir. The once attractive town has been transformed into a Martian landscape where some buildings are marked with a red tideline, indicating where the sludge rushed past a week ago.
About 4,000 emergency crew, military and volunteers worked to build emergency dykes around the reservoir after officials pronounced part of the wall “unsalvageable”, raising fears of a second torrent of sludge.
Devecser’s 54,000 residents were told on Saturday to pack a bag and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice if the worst should happen and the reservoir gave way again. Locals were told to wear face masks after warnings that the air contained potentially hazardous dust.
Hundreds of villagers in nearby Kolontar, the village closest to the reservoir and worst hit by the disaster, have been evacuated and access is strictly controlled.
After returning from their shift, rescue workers in filthy red-stained clothes waited patiently by the side of the road to be hosed down, fearing health problems from the sludge, which contains heavy metals including arsenic.
Thomas Ambrozy (30) a priest helping to organise the relief effort, said many homes had been devastated and would never be rebuilt. “The hardest thing is actually clearing the sludge. Much of it is still wet; it takes a whole day just to clear a few square metres.”
MAL insists it could not have averted the accident, but its initial public response to the spill was widely criticised. In addition to the eight people killed, about 150 were injured after the reservoir broke eight days ago, unleashing some 800,000 cubic metres of sludge, a byproduct of bauxite refining. Many of the injured sustained burns from the highly alkaline sludge.
“People aren’t panicking here but they are angry. The company apologised too late,” a volunteer with the Caritas charity said, declining to be named.
The government has declared the accident an ecological disaster unprecedented in Hungary’s history. On the approach to Devecser the now rusty-brown Marcal river appeared to have borne the brunt of the deluge and officials said life there was completely destroyed.
However, the potential for a wider ecological catastrophe was avoided after gypsum and acid was dumped into tributaries of the Danube in order to bind and neutralise the sludge.
Devecser would probably be spared if the reservoir gave way for a second time as the remaining sludge is said to be less liquid and will therefore travel less far.
Dental technician Baliat Horvath (20) said locals were deeply saddened by the disaster. “I guess they’re going to try to build up this place again. But it’s going to take months – if not years.” – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)