Hungary Toxic Sludge Spill an “Ecological Catastrophe” Says Government

An industrial dam broke loose, releasing a torrent of toxic red sludge, left over from an aluminum manufacturing plant, over the Hungarian countryside. In minutes, the sludge transformed picturesque communities into scenes from a horror movie, with deaths, injuries, mass evacuations and threats to the Danube and Raba rivers, already heavily polluted in that nation. “Local environmentalists said the plant, which had been privatized several years ago, should have been modernized but that the company put profits first,” reports Mark Tran for the Guardian in Great Britain. Despite so much devastation, European Union standards do not label the sludge as “toxic,” reports Tran. Covering the costs of damages of clean-up ultimately falls to taxpayers and consumers, and any with foresight will look to governments to provide accurate descriptions of dangers associated with mining and its byproducts, regulating procedures and protecting drinking-water supplies. – YaleGlobal