After the sludge: Rebuilding Hungary’s towns

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14575564

By Nick Thorpe BBC News, Hungary

Last October a toxic waste spill from an aluminium factory swallowed homes in Western Hungary in what was the country’s worst environmental disaster. Nick Thorpe visited the town for One Planet from the BBC World Service to see what had become of its residents.

There is nothing to photograph beyond the stream in Kolontar anymore, just weeds and puddles and a track down the middle that turns right, then peters out on a piece of wasteground beside a ditch. It is astonishing how short a road appears when all the houses are gone. All that is left of Kossuth Street and Mill Street.

Erzsebet and Zoltan Juhasz walk down this way sometimes, to see where their home used to be. They even found a tomato plant, growing among the tall weeds where their garden was.

“I dug it up and replanted it in my new garden and now it’s full of fruit!” Erzsebet explains.

“It is the only light moment in a conversation about a subject which is still usually too painful to talk about – the moment when her 14-month-old daughter, Angyalka, was swept from her arms when a tidal wave of red sludge hit their house on 4 October last year.

As we speak in her new kitchen, another little girl, Dori, runs in, laughing hilariously, three years old, wanting to play. Seven-year-old Gergo comes in to listen solemnly to the grown-ups

His father asks him to go out again – both he and Erzsebet are crying – as they tell their story. But the boy stays, and Dori plays, and outside 13-year-old Renata stands by the slide. And Erzsebet is expecting a new baby, a boy, in November.

“We’ve very grateful for all the help we received, from the Red Cross, from the Baptist charity, from the state too, for giving us this house. I mean, they didn’t have to, did they? They could have waited for the aluminium company to pay up.”

Instead, the missing half of Kolontar has been rebuilt in record time, 21 brand new houses on the highest ground in the village.

Promise kept

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban promised when he came here to oversee the evacuation of the village on 9 October that everyone would be fully compensated, everyone would get new homes or the cash equivalent.

And to everyone’s surprise, the promise has been fulfilled, the houses are white and gleaming, each one slightly different, the woodwork is varnished, children are playing in the gardens again, and in the distance, Somlo Hill, Hungary’s table mountain, stands firm as a rock, rising out of the summer haze.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to move out of sight of that,” laughs Endre Csipszer, jabbing his finger at the horizon. We are standing in Devecser now, further down the valley from Kolontar.

Here there is a bigger housing estate, 87 new houses, each with flowers in the window, and workmen carrying new sofas and beds and kitchen furniture in through the door. “Look at all this… some even call it the golden sludge now.”

“We never dreamed of living in a new house, one like this,” says his partner Tereza, showing us from room to room. A few pieces of furniture they managed to salvage from the old house stand in one room. Otherwise, everything is new.

By the ruins of the post office in Devecser, we meet Tamas Toldi, the mayor. The post office is one of the last of nearly 300 buildings to be knocked down in his town, their walls and foundations fatally weakened by the caustic, alkaline waters of the disaster.

“This area in front of us will be turned into a beautiful memorial park,” says the mayor.

“There’ll be lots of park benches, playgrounds, fishermen fishing in the little ponds there. Behind that there’ll be a sportsground with a football pitch. And beyond that, a new light industrial park where we hope to develop renewable energy and create jobs for the town.”

Renewable energy, he stresses. “People here have had enough environmental destruction. It’s very important for them that any jobs created here are not at the cost of more damage to the environment.”

Compensation battle

In the fields between Kolontar and Devecser, the government commissioner for the agricultural rehabilitation of the area, Csaba Szabo, proudly shows us the maize crop, tall and dark green, growing in the middle of a valley at the centre of the path of the red mud.

“We had originally planned for the corn to be burnt as biomass, but the analyses show that it is safe to eat.”

So it will be fed as fodder to the cattle, after all. Nearby, there is a plantation of fast-growing poplars, in an area just before Devecser where the red mud once stood deepest.

Here, all the top soil was removed and replaced, and the poplars will be harvested in just two years’ time, as an energy crop.

People speak of the remarkable regenerative power of nature, and of the unexpected speed and generosity of the state, in a clean-up and rebuilding operation that has cost over $150m (£90.5m) so far, and still continues. But the government remains determined to get that money back from MAL Zrt, the aluminium company.

“For the company to be able to pay compensation to all the victims of this disaster, it is in our interest for them to continue production, to continue generating an income,” says Gyorgy Bakondy, the head of the Hungarian disaster management authority, who supervised the company until last month.

He also oversaw a switch from wet, red-sludge producing technology, to dry disposal of the waste.

Caught in a pincer movement of criminal claims, civil claims and the prospect of a massive fine for destroying the environment, the company is involved in discussions behind closed doors with the government.

So might there be an out-of-court settlement? I ask Zoltan Illes, secretary of state for the environment.

“There might be, easily,” he replies.

And if there is, that is likely to happen soon – before the first anniversary of the disaster.

via BBC News – After the sludge: Rebuilding Hungary’s towns.

See also, from the BBC:

• Hungary country profile 16 FEBRUARY 2011, COUNTRY PROFILES
• ‘New risk’ at Hungary sludge site 08 FEBRUARY 2011, EUROPE
• Inquiry into Hungary sludge spill 06 OCTOBER 2010, EUROPE

26 August 2011 Last updated at 10:14 ET Help

A car bomb attack has struck the UN building in the Nigerian capital Abuja, killing at least 16 people.

The powerful blast wrecked the bottom floor of the building.

A witness, named only as Raphael, spoke of his fear and anguish at the scenes he was confronted with.

Read More

via BBC News – Nigeria blast eyewitness: ‘I almost cried’.

Latest Updates on Hurricane Irene

By ROBERT MACKEY

On Friday, The Lede is tracking preparations for the expected landfall of Hurricane Irene, a powerful storm heading for the Northeastern United States.

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5:46 P.M. |Even if Storm Weakens, Flooding Could Be a Problem

Jeff Masters, a founder of the Weather Underground Web site who studied storms from the air for four years with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Hunters, is tracking Irene’s progress in great detail on his WunderBlog.

In his most recent post, Dr. Masters reports: "Satellite data and measurements from the Hurricane Hunters show that Irene is weakening." He explains that an Air Force flight over the storm this morning "found that Irene’s eyewall had collapsed," this morning. He adds: "The winds measured in Irene near the surface support classifying it as a strong Category 1 hurricane or weak Category 2."

Based on the latest data, Dr. Masters produced a good news/bad news forecast: predicting that the storm could cause dramatic flooding even if it weakens to a Category 1 hurricane as it moves north. He explains:

With its eyewall collapsed and just 18 more hours over water before landfall, Irene does not have time to build a new eyewall and intensify. The storm is too large to weaken quickly, and the best forecast is that Irene will be a strong Category 1 hurricane at landfall in North Carolina on Saturday.

Based on the latest wind analysis from NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division and Irene’s continued weakening trend, I predict that the 80-mile section of North Carolina coast to the right of where Irene makes landfall will receive sustained hurricane-force winds of 75-85 m.p.h. on Saturday at landfall; the 80-mile section of coast to the left will receive 55-75 m.p.h. winds. High wind shear of 30 knots will begin ripping into Irene Sunday morning when it is near Southern New Jersey, and more rapid weakening will occur.

By the time Irene arrives on Long Island Sunday afternoon, it will probably have top sustained winds in the 65-75 m.p.h. range. However, since Irene is such a huge storm — tropical storm force winds extend out up to 290 miles from the center — it has set a massive amount of the ocean’s surface in motion, which will cause a much larger storm surge than the winds would suggest. At 3:30 pm EDT this afternoon, a wind analysis from NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division indicated that the potential storm surge damage from Irene still rated a 5.0 on a scale of 0 to 6. This is equivalent to the storm surge a typical Category 4 hurricane would have.

While this damage potential should steadily decline as Irene moves northwards and weakens, we can still expect a storm surge one full Saffir-Simpson Category higher than Irene’s winds when it impacts the coast. Since tides are at their highest levels of the month this weekend due to the new moon, storm surge flooding will be at a maximum during the high tidal cycles that will occur at 8 p.m. Saturday night and 8 a.m. Sunday morning. Wherever Irene happens to be at those times, the storm surge damage potential will be maximized. I continue to give a 20 percent chance that a 3-4 foot storm surge high enough to over-top the Manhattan flood walls and swamp the New York City subway system will occur on Sunday. The latest 11 a.m. probabilistic storm surge map from the National Hurricane Center shows a 20-30 percent chance of a storm surge in excess of 3 feet in New York Harbor. Keep in mind that these maps are calculated for normal tide level, and this weekend’s high tides will be nearly 1 foot above normal.

5:18 P.M. |Looking at Simulations of the Possible Storm Surge

MITA simulation of the storm surge from Hurricane Irene (using the Slosh model) shows severe flooding in New Haven and New London, Conn., (the scale is in feet) and parts of New Jersey, with extra sea height of around four feet (on top of the tide) in New York City.

In a new post on his Dot Earth blog, "New York Surge From Irene Looks Bad, But Not Off Charts," my colleague Andrew Revkin reports:

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on coastal impacts from hurricanes have run fresh simulations of the possible storm surge as Hurricane Irene hits the New York metropolitan region. Simulations using two surge models (known by their acronyms, SLOSH and ADCIRC) found 1.22 and 1.05 meters of surge (4 and 3.44 feet) of surge at the Battery, at the southern tip of Manhattan.

This would pose serious risks to low installations and the subways but is nowhere near a worst case (think 13 feet, as in 1821)….

The surge model also does not include waves* and the extra tide expected because it’s a new moon. They’re in the process of running a simulation with that factor included.

In an update to the post, he adds:

The Storm Surge Research Group at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, has a great online tool that provides an advance estimate of storm surge at important spots around New York City and Long Island Sound. Click on a buoy to see the current state of sea level and what’s anticipated over the next 24 hours (the models are run twice a day). The group emphasizes that this is a work in progress and should not be used to make evacuation decisions or the like.

via Latest Updates on Hurricane Irene – NYTimes.com.

Assuming that these news reports bear more than a passing resemblance to available credible evidence,  Morris County, New Jersey prosecutors  and two unfortunate defense attorneys will have to deal with this disturbing fact-pattern. Most disturbing is that a young woman, the mother of a young child, predicted that her husband would kill her,  and communicated her fear to at least one family member before he  had her killed – and himself wounded in a staged shooting – in front of their three-year-old son.  The child is now an orphan who has witnessed his mother being killed, his father being shot, and will grow up, orphaned, knowing that his father was responsible for his mother’s death.

The father, one Kashif Parvaiz, when interviewed after the shooting, gave conflicting accounts within hours – the number and race of the assailants seems to have changed within hours.  Three men each of a different race changed to three African-American men. Assuming that Mr. Parvaiz did give both accounts within hours of the shooting, at best he’s demonstrated that he’s not a reliable witness; at worst, that he’s a liar and not very good at it.

Furthermore, he is reported to have repeatedly claimed

The husband of a young mother who was shot dead as they walked with their three-year-old son along a street in the US state of New Jersey has been charged with her murder. Kashif Parvaiz, 26, who was himself wounded in Tuesday’s shooting, said he and Nazish Noorani had been attacked by men who called them terrorists. But police say he and a woman, Antionette Stephen, plotted the murder. Prosecutors have not detailed the suspects’ relationship. According to an arrest affidavit seen by the BBC, Ms Stephen is suspected of pulling the trigger during the attack, in which the child was unharmed. ‘Inconsistent story’ She and Mr Parvaiz are in custody facing charges of murder, conspiracy and weapons offences. He is also accused of child-endangerment. Prosecutors said Mr Parvaiz and Ms Noorani, 27, had been visiting relatives in Boonton, northern New Jersey, on Tuesday evening when shots rang out. Ms Noorani died and Mr Parvaiz was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. According to the Morris County prosecutor, Mr Parvaiz told investigators they had been shot by a black male, a white male and a third unknown male, who shouted racist slurs. But inconsistencies emerged in his story under questioning, authorities said. He later said that they had been attacked by three black males, according to the arrest affadavit. Under further questioning, Mr Parvaiz said he did not intend for this to happen, that he did not want to go to jail, and that he should control his anger so this did not happen again. “Within hours of the crime, it was obvious to investigators that this was sadly the alleged handiwork of the victim’s husband, who allegedly did the unthinkable and plotted to murder his wife after a religious celebration,” Morris County prosecutor Robert Bianchi said in a statement. Ms Noorani, a native of Karachi, Pakistan, and Mr Parvaiz, from Brooklyn, were reportedly wed in an arranged marriage six years ago. According to the affidavit, Ms Noorani had recently sent to her brother a text message, which read: “Someday u will find me dead but its cuz of kashi… He wants to kill me..” Mr Parvaiz had told family and neighbours that he was attending graduate school at Harvard, but the school has no record of him studying there. Ms Stephen, a native of India, is an employee at a Best Buy store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to US media.