Otto Spins Subtropically ...Toxic Sludge Destroys Towns in Hungary...

While Otto spins silently out in the Atlantic, closer than it looks but further away than it seems from Florida I keep getting lured away from the tropics to read about the Ecological Disaster going on in Hungary on a town in one of the most beautiful countries in Europe. For that town... it is as big of a disaster as the oil spewing forth into the Gulf endlessly that created an Environmental Disaster in our part of the world.

You can read about Hungary and see some beautiful, stunning pictures or read on long ago Kings and Queens, but this is the salient part right here.

"Hungary declared a state of emergency on October the 5th, 2010, after a flood of toxic sludge escaped from a Communist Era Aluminium factory in the town of Ajka killing at least 3 people, injuring 120 and flooding some 400 homes as it hit Kolontar and Devecser near the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in the town of Ajka, 160 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of Budapest. The discharge was estimated at 38,800,000 million cubic feet, (which is roughly the same volumes as in 440 Olympic-size swimming pools) of red and toxic industrial sludge that affected some 15 square miles[53][54]."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary

Wikipedia is an amazing thing... the immediacy of it floors me. Almost before some hurricane makes landfall on some beautiful shoreline there is someone writing up info on the landfall and should the info be bad, it will be pulled fast and someone else will correct it. As amazing as the Internet is... so is Wikipedia. Of course, for the purists you can always go to the CIA Fact Book ;)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/hu.html

But, the real fact is that an Aluminum Plant that was built back in the days when Communism reigned supreme that was built with few controls and little care about the people or the environment has released and I quote again from the article above " 440 Olympic-size swimming pools) of red and toxic industrial sludge that affected some 15 square miles"

Love the way some newspaper in Europe says this "could be" an ecological disaster..
You think????

Our world is a fragile world that looks a lot stronger than it is. We live with the illusion that accidents won't happen, worst case scenarios won't pan out and people who worry are paranoid or extremists or who need therapy or happy pills. Wrong.
Well we all need therapy and could probably use happy pills but no one needs 440 Olympic Size Swimming Pools of Toxic Red Sludge coming down their cul de sac.

Can you imagine...

Here is online video of a raging river of red mud.. no red sludge... red toxic sludge:



Would you have wanted your children or puppy dogs playing out in the yard when that red river of toxicity rushed down your street or into your yard? Watch as it covers the first automobile with a red coat and then washes away the automobile. That is about as deadly an event as you can get just from the flash flood end of it let alone you need Hazmat crews to go in and dig out what is buried.

FOUR people have died so far, the mud has reached a small branch of the Danube River.

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/toxic-sludge-reaches-the-danube-20101007-16a04.html

Picture from the article by Salon on the matter...great picture and great article but please remember that this is not mud in Tennessee that needs to be cleaned up... it contains extremely toxic chemicals that can have long range affects over time not just today.

http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2010/10/05/toxic_sludge_of_doom

What does this have to do with Otto and the Tropics?

Everything in the world is related. Disasters like this can happen anywhere and the name Otto tho Germanic usually is also often used in Austria and Hungary with the accent over the final o.

Film Director Otto Preminger, born Otto Ludwig Preminger, 5 December 1905 - 23 April 1986, Wiznitz, Austria-Hungary.

Very sad tragedy for a ecological storm that bears no name while a Subtropical Tropical Storm with the name Otto spins silently out in the Ocean.

Which should we be more concerned with??

You tell me...

My prayers go out to the people affected by this tragedy that is man made and could have been avoided. Tropical and Subtropical Storms are provided by Mother Nature and they move energy around the planet as part of the overall atmospheric rivers of wind that bring Hail to Arizona, Fall to the Carolinas and Rain to Miami.

Not a lot to say about Otto right now but if he threatens the Azores one day I'll have more to say about him.

In other parts of the Tropical World...

There is another wave in the Caribbean that may or may not develop, may go north but most probably will go west and another wave in the Atlantic westbound. The season is far from over...winding down yes but not over.

Besos Bobbi
Ps... I am one part Hungarian..a very small part but they are strong genes ;) and I am proud of them. One quarter is not much to write home about, especially when it was one of the areas that was Russia one year, Czechoslovakia another year and Hungary another year but think we can safely say it was mostly Hungary. Now I have some friends who are half Cuban and half Hungarian...THOSE ARE GENES TO DIE FOR ;)