Construction of the reservoir without a proper foundation was to blame, the court said, referring to a professional report, adding that the reservoir had been a “time bomb “. The court established the reservoirs had lacked an appropriate monitoring system, but even with one the disaster could not have been prevented. They added that the reservoir had not contained more waste than permitted.

Before the ruling was read out, a radical nationalist Jobbik deputy held up a sign: “ten lives are worth so little”. Lajos Képli was then ejected from the court. Képli, who had headed a parliamentary investigation into the sludge spill, told reporters afterwards that he found the ruling “appalling”.

He said his committee had earlier established that leaders of the alumina plant were “clearly” responsible for amassing “so much sludge” in the reservoir. “There isn’t a country in the world where they would not find the people responsible for such a disaster,” he said.

The green opposition LMP party said Hungary’s rules were not up to the task of preventing or managing environmental disasters, and called for legal changes as well as demanding that people responsible for the spill should be held to account.

LMP’s Benedek R Sallai, who also head parliament’s sustainable development committee, urged parliament to pass his party’s mandatory environmental liability proposal into law.

The Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party criticised the acquittal ruling, saying it seemed there was “no political will” to find the real culprits in this case.

Benedek Jávor, the party’s MEP, said the real solution to this problem would be to enact a Europe-wide law for handling industrial activities which have great environmental risks.

In Hungary’s worst environmental disaster a million cubic metres of toxic red sludge escaped from the reservoir of the Mal company’s alumina plant, flooding the nearby villages of Kolontár and Somlovásárhely, and the town of Devecser in October 16 years ago.

The toxic spill killed ten people, injured over 200, destroyed 358 homes, wiped out all life in two small rivers and polluted over 1,000 hectares of land.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu - Visit Hungary Matters to sign-up for MTI’s twice-daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Nagy Lajos