One of the people injured in
Hungary's sludge spill has died in hospital, Hungarian media reported today, as new evidence of environmental damage emerged.
The fifth victim was an 81-year-old man who died in a hospital in Veszprém, western Hungary, from serious injuries early this morning, the
MTI news agency said. The first victims were a 35-year-old man, an elderly woman, a three-year-old girl and her younger sister. Three others are still missing since Monday, when toxic red sludge inundated several villages after a reservoir wall broke.
Several more people are being treated for critical or serious injuries, mainly chemical burns.
The death toll rose as Hungarian officials reported no serious damage so far to the Danube, easing fears of an environmental disaster in one of Europe's most important waterways.
Hungarian disaster officials said alkaline levels in the Danube were normal after
emergency crews poured plaster and acetic acid (vinegar) into rivers that flowed into it.
"These data give us hope … and we have not experienced any damage on the main Danube so far," Tibor Dobson, a Hungarian disaster spokesman, told Reuters.
Dobson said fresh data showed pH levels of 8-8.2 in the Danube, which could be considered "normal", down from a level of around 9 when the sludge reached the river yesterday.
Apart from the efforts of Hungarian emergency crews, experts said the sheer volume of the Danube would dilute the effects of the sludge.
"The mud will react with organic substances in the Danube and will lose its force and turn unharmful," said Professor Huub Savenije, a hydrologist from Delft University in the Netherlands.
Path of the spill But while disaster may have been averted in the Danube, environmental activists said the site of the spill in western Hungary had suffered severe environmental damage. Greenpeace said it had found surprisingly high levels of arsenic in the red mud samples it had tested.
"The arsenic concentration is approximately twice the usual concentrations in red mud," the group said in a statement. "This toxic
pollution causes an additional long-term risk to the ecosystems and drinking water."
Greenpeace said the sludge had deposited the equivalent of 50 tonnes of arsenic in the area of the spill.
"In the analysis of the water from a small channel in Kolontar there was an arsenic content of 0.25 milligrams per litre, which is 25 times higher than the drinking water limit," the group said.
Government officials said that in just a few hours the spill disgorged 600,000 to 700,000 cubic metres (158m to 184m gallons) of sludge on to three villages, including Kolontar – just less than the 200m gallons of oil which spewed into the gulf of Mexico over several months when a BP well burst.
There were reports of dead fish in the Raba and Mosoni-Danube rivers earlier affected. All waterlife died in the smaller Marcal river, the first to be struck by the spill.
Crews were monitoring water quality on the Danube as the pollution moved downstream towards the capital.
Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties on Tuesday after the sludge – waste from bauxite refining that has a strong caustic effect – hit Kolontar, Devecser and other villages 100 miles west of Budapest.
Disaster crews, military personnel and villagers were clearing the rubble and continued to search for three missing people. Many people suffered burns and eye problems caused by the caustic effect and corrosive elements in the mud.
Environmental groups accused MAL Zrt, the owner of the Ajkai Timfoldgyar alumina plant, of irresponsibility and were planning to block its plans to expand bauxite mining operations in Nyírád, a village in Veszprém county, western Hungary.
"A company that doesn't take responsibility for people's death and injuries caused by its own red mud storage doesn't look like a company which cares about the environment during its work and activities," environmental groups including Friends of the Earth wrote in an open letter to Zoltán Illés, the secretary of state for rural development.
MAL Zrt said an inspection of the reservoir on Monday had shown nothing wrong. The reservoir was no longer leaking and a protective wall was being built around its damaged section. Red sludge is a byproduct of the refining of bauxite into alumina, the basic material for manufacturing aluminum. Treated sludge is often stored in ponds where the water eventually evaporates.
