The Damaged Red Sludge Reservoir Appears Stable

 According to the article below, authorities say cracks in the walls of a broken reservoir that released a deluge of toxic red sludge on several towns have not grown any wider, and a mayor says he hopes a state of alert can be called off.
Gallons of caustic sludge and water burst from a storage pool of a metals plant. 
Authorities fear that if the cracks widen and the wall falls, it could release another flood of that toxic mix. Please God it doesn't happen.
     . . . June


--------------------------


Hungary`s damaged red sludge reservoir seen stable
2010-10-14 21:20:00

"Authorities say cracks in the walls of a broken reservoir that released a deluge of toxic red sludge on several towns have not grown any wider, and a mayor says he hopes a state of alert can be called off.

The National Disaster Management Directorate also said Wednesday that the death toll in western Hungary had risen to nine after an elderly man died overnight. Around 50 people are still hospitalized.

Devecser Mayor Tamas Toldi says he hopes the state of alert can be called off once a protective wall in neighboring Kolontar is completed.

Some 700,000 cubic meters (184 million gallons) of caustic sludge and water burst from a storage pool of a metals plant.

Authorities fear that if the cracks widen and the wall falls, it could release another flood

Read entire article

Managing Director ARRESTED For Role in Red Sludge

According to the following article, the managing director of the company whose reservoir unleashed a lethal torrent of red sludge on three villages last week has been arrested. Apparently, there is cause to suspect that there were people aware of the dangerous weakening of the storage walls. I'm very much afraid that there are likely many other similar storage facilities in the same state of disrepair.
     . . . June


-----------------------
Hungary Arrests Official, Citing Role in Red Sludge
NYTimes.com: "By DAN BILEFSKY  Published: October 11, 2010

BUDAPEST — The managing director of the company whose reservoir unleashed a lethal torrent of red sludge on three villages last week has been arrested, the Hungarian prime minister said Monday, castigating the company for corporate greed before Parliament.

“There’s probable cause to suspect that there were persons who had been aware of the dangerous weakening of the storage pond walls,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, “but they thought, because of their private interests, that it was not worth mending them and hoped the disaster wouldn’t happen.”

But the arrest also revealed the complex intersections of business and politics within the state companies that were privatized in a rush in the 1990s.

The arrested official, Zoltan Bakonyi, is the son of Arpad Bakonyi, a businessman who played a central role in the privatization of the country’s aluminum industry and is the largest shareholder of the company now under scrutiny, the formerly state-owned MAL. The elder Mr. Bakonyi is also a close business associate of a former prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, who is Mr. Orban’s political archrival.

The younger Mr. Bakonyi will be charged with criminal negligence leading to a public catastrophe, a government spokeswoman said. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 10 years.

In a statement to the Hungarian news agency M.T.I., he denied breaking any rules and said that the most recent inspections had shown no anomalies. “We observed every regulation to the letter,” he said.

A week ago, nearly 200 million gallons of caustic red mud — a byproduct of the conversion of bauxite to alumina, for aluminum — poured out of a reservoir after part of its containing wall collapsed. The cascade killed eight people and injured hundreds. Hundreds more have been forced from their homes, and tens of millions of dollars in private property has been destroyed.


Read Entire article

Workers Race To BUILD DAM Ahead Of Reservoir Rupture

 According to the article below, workers race to build an emergency dam in western Hungary as cracks in the reservoir widen, threatening to unleash a second torrent of toxic sludge. One of the biggest fears with any new spill is the danger that it could reach the Danube River. The toxicity in that main European waterway could spread it far and wide.
    . . . June


-----------------------
Hungary races to build dam amid new sludge threat
Yahoo! News:  By Gergely Szakacs Gergely Szakacs – Sun Oct 10, 12:44 pm ET

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Workers raced to build an emergency dam in western Hungary on Sunday as cracks in a reservoir widened, threatening to unleash a second torrent of toxic sludge on the village of Kolontar and nearby rivers.

About one million cubic meters of the waste material leaked out of the alumina plant reservoir into villages and waterways earlier this week, killing seven people, injuring 123 and fouling rivers including a local branch of the Danube.

Nearly a week into the disaster, a person was still missing.

Kolontar was evacuated on Saturday after cracks appeared in the northern wall of the reservoir, threatening a second spill of the toxic red sludge, which swept through neighboring areas on Monday, toppling cars and wreaking havoc in houses.

A by-product of alumina production, the thick, highly alkaline substance has a caustic effect on the skin. It contains heavy metals, such as lead, and is slightly radioactive. Inhaling its dust can cause lung cancer.

Late on Sunday the Veszprem county disaster unit advised crews and residents in the area affected by Monday's spill to wear protective masks and glasses as dust levels in some places had exceeded the health limit as the sludge was drying out.

It said the dust can irritate airways due to its alkalinity.

News agency MTI quoted environment state secretary Zoltan Illes as saying a 25-meter-long crack in the weakened wall of the sludge reservoir had widened slightly further by Sunday and the wall now looked beyond repair.

Illes said the northern wall of the reservoir could collapse "within one day or a week" and crews at the scene were scrambling to complete a new dam to protect Kolontar and the nearby town of Devecser, home to 5,400 people.

Illes said authorities had amassed plaster and various types of acids along 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the river Marcal to neutralize the high alkaline content of any new spill before it reaches the Danube, a major European waterway.

Read entire article
-------------------------