From Reuters "Crews were working to reduce the alkalinity of the spill, which poured out of the burst containment reservoir of an alumina plant on Monday and tore through local villages, killing four people and injuring over 150. Three are still missing. The spill's alkaline content when it reached the Raba, the Mosoni-Danube and the Danube itself, was still around pH 9 -- above the normal, harmless level of between 6 and 8. Fresh data from the water authority on national news agency MTI showed pH levels peaking at 9.65 in the Mosoni-Danube river at the city of Gyor. They were measured at 8.4 in the Danube. Crews were pouring hundreds of tonnes of plaster and acetic acid into the rivers to neutralize the alkalinity. In Gyor, a city in the northwest of Hungary where the Raba flows into the Mosoni-Danube, a Reuters reporter saw white froth on the river and many dead fish washed ashore." Check out the full article at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69415O20101007.
Also see the Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/1007/Hungary-s-toxic-sludge-reminiscent-of-2000-Romania-disaster-but-much-worse
"Removing the sludge, let alone beginning to rehabilitate the area, will take years, says Szegfalvi, adding that drinking water could become polluted as the toxins seep into the ground and into the water table. Agriculture will likely be impossible for many years."
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