Russia may face similar environmental disasters like the one in Hungary, Greenpeace Russia's press service said on Tuesday.
One million cubic meters of toxic red sludge flowed out of a burst reservoir from an aluminum plant on October 4 in Ajka, Hungary, approximately 160 km (100 miles) west of Budapest. At least eight people died and another 120 were injured, with 40 of them in a critical state. Hundreds of people have been evacuated from the area.
"Bearing in mind the dire state of many hydraulic structures in the country we can not exclude the risk of a recurrence of the Hungarian accident, except [next time] in Russia," Ivan Blokov, Greenpeace program director in Russia, said. "The upcoming winter promises to be cold and snowy which lead to massive floods, and may cause dams to break."
According to official data, Russian sludge reservoirs store around 8 billion cubic meters of industrial waste of different hazard classes, Greenpeace Russia said. That is about 10,000 times more than what escaped into environment after the accident in Hungary.
Toxic sludge from the Hungarian plant may reach Ukrainian territory next week, Ukraine's environment ministry said on Monday.
According to world media, experts say they believe the 1,000,000 cubic meters of toxic red sludge spillage from the broken dam was a disaster waiting to happen.
MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti)
