One minute, you’re living in a picturesque village in Hungary, doing whatever it is picturesque villagers in Hungary do. The next minute, your town turns into Mars during flood season as a massive wall of 700,000 cubic meters of red, toxic aluminum sludge comes rushing through. Six people are missing, four are confirmed dead, 150 have been injuried, and 400 people had to be evacuated from four Hungarian villages as a result of a toxic aluminum sludge spill from the Ajkai Timfoldgyar Zrt aluminum plant.
“We have declared a state of emergency in Veszprem, Gyor-Moson-Sopron and Vas counties,” said Natural Disaster Unit （NDU） spokeswoman Anna Nagy. “In Veszprem county, it’s because that is the scene of the disaster and the sludge is headed towards the other two counties.”
According to spokesmen from MAL Magyar Aluminum, which operated the plant in question, the chemical slurry released by the accident （which they emphasize was completely the fault of equipment failure and not human error） isn’t technically toxic material according to EU standards, even though it contains lead and other heavy metals, causes corrosive burns on skin, is slightly radioactive, and causes lung cancer if inhaled. Seems pretty freaking toxic to me, once you add all that up.
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