Red sludge company to resume production

The factory that caused Hungary’s red sludge disaster is to resume production on Thursday or Friday, as officials declare that there is no threat of another chemical spill and villagers can return home.

Reuters

The death toll from the 4 October spill from the Mal alumina plant reached nine on Wednesday, when one of the injured elderly people died in hospital. Forty-five other people are still in hospital, one of them still in a critical condition.

Hungarian ministers visited the disaster site in Ajka on Wednesday. Interior Minister Sandor Pinter announced that a state of “evacuation readiness”, imposed on the town of Devecser on Saturday, would be lifted Wednesday.

A system of dams blocking the sludge has been completed.

The Mal Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company is set to start work again “as soon as the system has reached its operational temperature” on Thursday or Friday, national disaster chief Gyorgy Bakondi declared Wednesday.

And the company’s boss, Zoltan Bakonyi, was freed by a court, according to his lawyer, Janos Banati.

The Nepszabadsag newspaper claims that Bakonyi and other members of the company’s management had been aware of leaks in the factory’s reservoir for weeks. It claims that about 20 of the plant’s workers have told police that they were ordered to “hold their tongues” about them or be sacked.