Hungary Toxic Flood - With four people dead, more than 120 injured, and up to 390 evacuated, Hungarian authorities are fighting to prevent further chaos following the nation's biggest-ever chemical spill. The leak, which started at an aluminum plant in Ajka, a town 100 miles southwest of Budapest, has pumped at least 35 million cubic feet of toxic sludge from the plant's water reservoir into nearby rivers since Oct. 4. And while Hungary has faced other environmental disasters — including a cyanide spill in the Tisza River in 2000 — none compare to the current crisis. "No one died" in that earlier incident, Eva Csobod, Director of the Hungarian office of the Regional Environmental Centre (REC) says. "In this spill, we already have four people dead, and two were children. I would say this is the worst Hungary has ever had."
And it looks like it will only get worse. By Oct. 7, the tidal wave of toxic red sludge — made up of arsenic, cadmium, and lead — was seeping into the Danube by way of the Raba River. Experts now fear Hungary's national disaster may turn into a regional one, with chemicals potentially reaching six countries. Officials in Croatia, Serbia and Romania have already started testing the Danube and have their fingers crossed the river's volume will help dilute any toxins. But Gabor Figeczky, acting head of WWF in Hungary, isn't optimistic. "Now the spill has gotten through to the Raba River and then to the Danube, and it still has a much higher alkaline concentration that we saw before," he told Deutsche Welle. "It's much worse than we expected [on Wednesday]."
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