Region: Second toxic spill feared in Hungary

As cleanup of the massive toxic sludge spill from an aluminum factory continues, and as officials say a second leak looks inevitable, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced both the arrest of the aluminum firm's director as well as plans to nationalize the firm through an emergency law Oct. 11.

Eight people were killed and more than 150 injured when 700 cubic meters (200 million gallons) of aluminum by-product burst from a factory reservoir Oct. 4 near the city of Ajka in western Hungary. The death toll officially rose to eight Oct. 11 when the body of an elderly woman was found in Devecser, not far from Kolontár, the village where most of the fatalities occurred.

The sludge covers several villages and towns spanning an area of more than 40 square kilometers. The orange viscous liquid is the leftover from the production of aluminum oxide and has a high alkaline content. The exact environmental effects are still unknown, but authorities are increasingly concerned that as the mud dries out, its particles will go airborne. 

The Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company (MAL Zrt.) owns the reservoir, and is a formerly state-owned firm. The company's managing director, Zoltán Bákonyi, is the son of the firm's largest shareholder Arpad Bákonyi. The younger Bakonyi, who has headed the company for two years, was detained by police for two days for suspected criminal negligence. He released a statement to the Hungarian news agency (MTI), denying that he and his firm were negligent. 

"We observed every regulation to the letter," he said.

MAL Zrt initially offered 100,000 forints ($510) compensation to families affected by the disaster, sparking widespread anger in Hungary.  

Questionable motives

Orbán, whose Fidesz party holds a two-thirds majority in Parliament and is coming off a resounding victory in local elections earlier this month, is responding decisively to the crisis, but some question whether his motivations are pure.

"There's probable cause to suspect that there were persons who had been aware of the dangerous weakening of the storage pond walls, but they thought, because of their private interests, that it was not worth fixing them and hoped the disaster would not happen," Orbán said in Parliament Oct. 11.

Peter Rona, an economist and visiting fellow at Oxford University told The New York Times, "It was certainly the case that the behavior of MAL's management has been blood-curdling and inept. But Mr. Orbán is seizing every opportunity to accumulate economic and political power in the hands of the government and taking advantage of the situation to further his agenda."

Hungary has requested assistance in the cleanup effort from the European Union, and five experts arrived Oct. 9. The European Commission said it will issue a communication on how better to coordinate and respond to natural and industrial disasters. 

Hungarian Environmental State Secretary Zoltán Illés said that a second breech in the reservoir is all but inevitable.

"2.5 million cubic meters of red mud is pushing that wall," he told the BBC. "The collapse could take place right now, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, but who knows?"

He added that fines for MAL Zrt. already total more than $100 million.

Preventing another tragedy

Authorities are racing to build a ringed berm of rock and earth around the reservoir to help contain a future leak. The wall would be 600 meters long and 30 meters thick, and officials hoped to complete the project Oct. 12, though there was no news of its completion at press time.

"We have 4,000 people and 300 machines working at the scene, so we are doing our utmost to prevent another tragedy," Péter Szijjartó, a spokesman for Orbán, told Hungarian television.

The sludge has caustic effects on human skin, and indeed, the bulk of the injuries were skin burns. It contains large amounts of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, mercury and chrome, according to tests conducted by Greenpeace. The bulk of those who died were killed by the rush of sludge in the village of Kolontár, and the lower part of the village is said to be completely uninhabitable. Kolontár has been evacuated and completely closed off by armed guards.

There was great concern that the spill would have a serious effect on Europe's second longest river, the Danube, which flows from Hungary into Serbia, Croatia and Romania. But the massive amount of water manages to dilute the contaminants and the pH levels in the river are relatively normal.

The story is not the same, however, in two smaller rivers that serve as tributaries to the Danube. Officials have scrambled to dilute the alkaline content in the Marcal and Raba rivers by pouring gypsum and acetic acid into the water.

The Marcal River is now said to be completely devoid of life. The waterway had a pH level of 13 in the days immediately following the spill.

Update: Zoltán Bákonyi was released from police custody without being charged Oct. 13.

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com