Firm behind “red mud” disaster hit with EUR 474 million fine (Budapest Times)

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Sunday, 18 September 2011

The company blamed for Hungary’s worst environmental disaster was fined HUF 135 billion (EUR 473.94 million) this week. Ten people were killed, hundreds were left homeless and over 150 people required hospital treatment for chemical burns after a tidal wave of toxic waste flooded out of a damaged storage pool at MAL Hungarian Aluminium’s plant in Ajka, western Hungary, on 4 October. The “red mud” affected 40 square kilometres, burying 800 hectares of farmland under red silt.

MAL was given 15 days to pay or appeal, State Secretary for Environmental Affairs Zoltán Illés said on Thursday. The clean-up alone has cost the state HUF 20-25 billion, Illés said the day after the fine was announced.

In the wake of the disaster, emergency work to build a series of dykes over a kilometre long was carried out to protect the villages of Kolontár, Devecser and Somlóvásárhely from any further deterioration in the storage pool, part of whose 30-metre-high wall had crumbled. New estates have been built to rehouse those whose homes were destroyed by the wave of sludge that was two metres high in places.

Despite the havoc wrought, the prospect that MAL’s Ajka plant could be shut down has been a source of anxiety to its 1,200 employees and the thousands of others who depend on it indirectly for their livelihood. The plant was re-opened just weeks after the spill and has since invested heavily to switch to a less hazardous “dry” process for refining bauxite ore.
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more: http://www.budapesttimes.hu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20450&Itemid=219




HUF is the Hungarian florint, worth about half a U.S. cent.

[sharp_stick]

1. In case you want to see the mud pit

before it broke through the wall.

Zoom in to the green arrow.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=47.085705,17.494326&spn=0.3,0.3&t=h&q=47.085705,17.494326