Hungary restarted a plant on Friday that fatally flooded villages with toxic red sludge.
At the same time, some residents evacuated last week returned to their homes despite warnings from environmentalists.
"Hope dies last, so I am still hoping for the best even though I have lost everything," said 84-year-old Ferenc Farkas as he boarded a bus to return to the village of Kolontar.
The spill of industrial waste last week at a western Hungarian aluminum plant, owned by MAL, killed nine people, injured more than 120 and polluted a tributary of the Danube when the wall of a sludge reservoir failed.
The state commissioner who controls MAL after the government took control earlier this week, said it will take at least four days for the plant to return to normal operation.
Disaster crews said about 380 of the 800 people evacuated from a nearby village had moved back to their homes in the afternoon.
The exact cause of the disaster is still not known.
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