Hungary village evacuated as new toxic flood 'likely'

Terra Daily via AFP: Hungarian police and soldiers evacuated 800 villagers Saturday as authorities said a second flood of toxic sludge from a chemicals plant was likely after new cracks appeared in a dyke. The villagers were evacuated at dawn from Kolontar, which is close to the reservoir that burst in western Hungary Monday, killing seven people, injuring scores more and poisoning rivers in the country's worst ecological disaster.

Security forces also warned thousands of residents in the nearby village of Devecser to be ready to be moved if necessary, officials said. "The reservoir is so damaged that it is likely that it will give way for a second time," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said. "If the dyke of the reservoir gives way, about 500,000 cubic metres will be released. Several cracks are visible from the north side of the reservoir," he said.

The first flood on October 4 released 1.1 million cubic metres (38.8 million cubic feet) of foul-smelling red toxic sludge into villages and rivers. "The evacuation of Kolontar began at six in the morning (0400 GMT) after we noticed that the dam started weakening at tank number 10," Disaster Relief Team chief Tibor Dobson told AFP…

A farm covered by "red mud" in outside of Kolontár, 167 Kilometers south-east to Budapest, shot by Balázs Mohai, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Spain license