The biggest ecological catastrophe to date in Hungary took place on October 4, when about 1 million cubic metres of red sludge flooded three settlements (Devecser, Kolontár and Somlóvásárhely) in Veszprém county. The sludge reservoir that caused the disaster is owned and operated by a private company.

The sludge flooded 1000 hectares of the nearby territories. The deluge was caused by a break in the wall of a reservoir that stores waste silt from an aluminium factory. 500 houses were buried by the red sludge, which has a strongly alkaline pH. Nine people were killed by the wave of caustic silt; a further one hundred and fifty were injured.

Contamination with the red sludge does not currently constitute a distinct food safety risk given that the competent authority for food chain safety has ensured the safe disposal of affected feed and food of both animal and non-animal origin as well as the official monitoring of the affected food-producing facilities.

Following the disaster, the competent authority immediately prohibited the sale and distribution of potentially contaminated food and feed. Work at the three food producing facilities within the affected area has been officially suspended. 1 350 000 eggs from a liquid egg producing plant have been destroyed and 19 587 bottles of wine have been officially seized.

No food or feed from the affected area has reached the market. On the top of the above measures a general ban on hunting, grazing, use of feed, fishing and angling has been ordered and is in force until withdrawal within the affected area; the ban on fishing and angling covers the lakes and rivers of three entire counties (Veszprém, Vas and Győr-Moson-Sopron). Disposal of dead fish was begun on October 6.

The hunting ban is applicable within the area covered by red sludge, and also to the hunting associations present within a 1 km protection zone established around the contaminated area. A ban on grazing activities and the use of feeds of local origin has been ordered in 22 settlements.

Damage assessment within the affected area is still ongoing, the number of dead animals found so far include 2 horses, 1 calf, 2 pigs, around 613 adult poultry, 50 dogs, 4 cats and 3 rabbits. Containers have been provided for the collection of dead animals to be disposed of by the government.

There is no risk of radioactive radiation, since emissions from the red sludge fall far below significant levels. Based on its experiments, a group of experts from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have determined that the heavy metal content of the red sludge is also far below tolerated levels. The lead content, for instance, is lower than that of normal soils.

According to information from the public health authority, the drinking water systems of the settlements within range of the disaster have not been affected by the sludge.

The competent authority for food chain safety will perform targeted sampling within the framework of the monitoring program, which also includes the analysis of the water pool.

Decontamination of the soil within the affected territory is ongoing. According to preliminary estimates, 1000 hectares of soil is affected. The exact size of the affected area is to be defined more clearly based on the ongoing investigations.

The red sludge contaminated the rivers resulting in serious basicity. Following the catastrophe, disaster recovery experts promptly began the protection of endangered rivers. As a first step, bio-acetic acid and gypsum was poured into the river Marcal to reduce basicity and to improve the quality of the water, then as a next step, sills were built onto the riverbed to reduce the flow of water and thereby increase the sedimentation of heavy metal contaminated sludge.

Despite immediate and intensive protection, the contamination of the river Marcal could not be prevented. Although the basicity of the river decreased to pH10 by Thursday morning, the flora and fauna of this river has died out.

The contamination of the river Marcal reached another river, the Rába, at 3 a.m. on Thursday morning, but by then the basicity of the water had already fallen under pH10.

The red sludge reached the Moson Danube with a basicity of pH9.3 later on Thursday morning.

Consequently, the red sludge reached the old Danube through these three rivers (the Marcal, Rába and Moson Danube) with a basicity of pH8-9 on Thursday. It is important to emphasize that the basicity of the water is decreasing continuously and significantly, and the contamination continues to be monitored by experts.

(Ministry of Rural Development, Press Office)