A quick post due to an item in New Scientist. All around the world there are accidents waiting to happen. We have a world shaped by all kinds of human activities, including mining and manufacturing - and the unavoidable consequences of those activities, like waste.
In October 2010, a million cubic meters of toxic sludge broke out of an industrial storage reservoir in Hungary.
...Sweeping across farmland and through the villages of Kolontár and Devecser in waves up to 2 metres high, the red deluge swept cars off roads and damaged houses, before spilling into the river Torna, a tributary of the Danube. At least seven people were killed, over 100 injured, and many more displaced.
Visiting the site six months later, Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros documented the effect on the landscape in a series of images he called The Line. The breached reservoir held caustic waste from a local plant that refined bauxite ore into an aluminium oxide known as alumina, the basic ingredient for manufacturing aluminium. Chief among the components of this by-product was iron oxide - hence the rust-red staining - but it also contained highly alkaline sodium hydroxide, used to dissolve aluminium oxide.
While the immediate effects of the spill are slowly being assimilated into history, Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros captured a set of surreal images of the aftermath. There's a gallery of them
here,
the area and the economic facts behind the disaster, and
a book about it all.
Not that you have to go all the way to Hungary to find a similar event.
Something to think about, while politicians argue about Lady Parts, Chains, Welfare Destruction, and other weighty matters.