On October 4 2010 an industrial accident took place at an alumina factory belonging to a privately owned company, Magyar Alumínium ZRt. Due to the ruptured dam of the sludge reservoir, a mixture of 600-700 thousand m³ of red sludge and water inundated the lower sections of the settlements of Kolontar, Devecser and Somlovasarhely in Veszprem county.

The contamination has affected 800 hectares of surrounding areas and 360 houses. The deeper soil layers and the first watertight soil layer are not affected directly; this was confirmed by the officials of the European Union and the World Health Organization, who conducted researches in the area in the last couple of days. Taking into consideration the results of the researches and thanks to the immediate defensive measures, clean-up and decontamination operations taken by the governmental agencies, local residents began to resettle to the affected area.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs would like to direct the foreign visitors’ attention to the fact that the abovementioned accident which took place some 160 km from Budapest is local, and the affected territories are not tourism destinations and there are no tourist attraction sights to be visited by foreigners.

Other regions in Hungary are completely safe for foreigners to visit and to stay. The everyday life of the residents continues normally. Hungarian tourism destinations are still at the disposal of foreign and domestic visitors with complete infrastructure and range of service.

You may find more information on the industrial accident on the official website of the National Directorate General for Disaster Management: http://redsludge.bm.hu/ The link points to a page outside of the Ministry's website, therefore it opens in a new window.