http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11475361

Yikes! Any Fodors in/near Budapest now?

We were there 9 days ago !!!

Stu Dudley

Well, I'm glad you got out!

What a mess! Rivals the whole BP in the gulf region of the southern USA.

BC

Holy Cow~! Nasty! I could not help noticing the blatant contradiction as reported: The Hungarian company that owns the plant says the sludge is not hazardous and the Hungarian Authorities says it is....well the amount of heavy metals in sludge has to be in very small (as in <5) parts per million (ppm) NOT to be hazardous.....so I SERIOUSLY DOUBT the mining company on this one....

What are the "heavy metals"?
Aluminum isn't heavy, and it isn't toxic.
Now, HCl or HFl is used in some alumina manufacturing methods, and those can be extremely toxic.
But, as usual, the press seems not to know any science-based details.

I did see that - awful and sad...

Gee, back to Chemistry II...don't blame the press because the term "heavy metal" is often ill-defined at best. But for you anal renentive types they <B>generally</B> (depending on with whom you consult/which source you like):

manganese
molybdenum
mercury
platinum
cobalt
lead

Some also include zinc, copper, and cobalt.

Now that you KNOW, does it really make any difference? This thing is a mess although I wasn't aware that it was affecting Budapest.

When I saw the title of this thread I thought you were referring to the recent rise of the € against the US dollar.

Scary stuff in Budapest, I'm glad I'm not there now.

this site is well known about and during the various yugo/internal/nato wars everyone managed to avoid bombing it, well accept once and it only hurt the danube, which only flows through romania so no one hurt.

I think the heavy metals are produced as a bi-product of the aluminium extraction. Actually bi-product must be the wrong word, they are present in the ore and drop out during production like gold and silver does from copper

Some article said the plant was in the Sopron area, which is close to the Austria-Hungary border. As such, I suspect the site would drain into the Donau upstream from Budapest, and thus between Slovakia and Hungary, on its way to the Black Sea.

I'm sorry you are right if its Sopron it didn't get bombed.

I saw this on the world news last night. It was awful! There were pictures of workers in haz-mat suits that looked bulkier than astronaut gear, dead animals covered in the stuff, homes covered in sludge up to window ledges. The workers were just slogging through the mess. Air view pictures showed the wide area of devastation. Sad!

I am planning a trip there in late November (an interlude from Vienna, which is my gateway city) and I hate to say it, but I am re-considering now. I will watch and wait. I am sure the Hungarians could use some tourist dollars when things have cleared out.

This is terrible. I feel really bad for the people and animals affected.

I must have seen the same television broadcast. It was horrific to see how far up the sides of buildings this sludge came--an elderly couple jumped out of the upper-floor windows of their home. And people in the hospital who said the sludge had burned them, looking like and stating that they were still experiencing intense physical pain. And last night's broadcast said this "river of sludge" was headed in the direction of the Danube.

BC

FWIWBC "The muddy red sludge is waste from the early stages of aluminium production.

Aluminium-containing ore, bauxite, is washed at high temperatures in sodium hydroxide. This dissolves the aluminium, which can then be processed further, but the red sludge is left behind as a waste product. It is this which has leaked from the Hungarian storage reservoirs.

The sludge waste contains a mixture of metal oxides. According to MAL Hungarian Aluminium - the company which produced the waste - between 40% and 45% is iron oxide. This gives the mud its characteristic red colour. Between 10% and 15% is aluminium oxide, a further 10% to 15% silicon oxide and there are smaller quantities of calcium oxide, titanium dioxide and oxygen-bonded sodium oxide.

The sludge is a strong alkali, meaning it will cause burns when it comes into contact with the skin, and can damage lungs and the digestive system if it is ingested. This may cause death."

The most dangerous aspect of this disaster is the impact to the drinking water. From my days as an environmental engineer, heavy metals are not very mobile..unless they are been transported by a nice sludge. They love to settle in soft tissue and are very quick to interface with cells and poison. If travel to that area do a LOT of research on the sources of drinking water for the region and the watershed downgradient flow. The fact that they are contained in a sludge attest to some sort of post-processing treament but if the sludge is not tested frequently for levels it is just as best to assume it is toxic.

This is bad news no matter how you cut it. People complain about environmental regs until a disaster like this ruins lives and lifelihoods for decades in the future.....

What a calamity. The environmental effects are difficult to fathom, but the fact that the town is uninhabitable and so many people lost everything is tragic.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...section=justin more bad news for the locals. very sad for them.
hard to understand 50 years worth of waste was allowed to just sit there?
lets hope it can be contained soon.

Interesting that the comments, apparently made by the company involved, stated that there was no way they could have know about such a danger, and it had passed a safety inspection just prior to the incident. However international environmental agencies as well as Hungarian ones have for some time indicted a problem existed and that there was a real potential for diaster. Sound familiar