An expert team of the Hrvatske Vode water management company, in cooperation with the Osijek County Public Health Institute, on Thursday morning stepped up the monitoring of the Danube River at Batina following an environmental disaster that occurred northwest of Lake Balaton in western Hungary on Monday, national Protection and Rescue Service (DZUS) said on Thursday.
Water samples are being taken from the Danube, and the water testing will continue every day for a week, after which it will depend on further developments, DZUS officials said.
The Hungarian news agency MTI has quoted Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the Hungarian department for emergency situations, as saying that the toxic red sludge that leaked from an aluminium plant in western Hungary on Monday reached the Danube on Thursday morning.
The sludge appeared at the place where the River Raba joins the Mosoni-Danube, the Danube's southern branch near Gyor.
Water tests show that water alkalinity now ranges between 8.96 and 9.07, the normal level being 8.0, an unnamed official at the Hungarian water management company told the Agence France Presse (AFP). The AFP said that dead fish could be seen in the Raba, but not in the Danube.
The Hungarian government on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in three western counties, after 1.1 million cubic metres of toxic red sludge on Monday leaked from an aluminium plant in western Hungary, about 250 kilometres from the Croatian border.
The spill flooded seven villages, killing four people and injuring 123.
