25 years have passed from an industrial accident perhaps little known, but which as gravity is overcome in Europe only by the Chernobyl disaster: it was the January 30, 2000 When a basin containing highly polluting sludge He collapsed in the surroundings of Bay sea (Frauenbach in German), mining town of western Romania, poisoning hectares of land before initially pouring into the Săsar river. The advance of poisons, mainly constituted by cyanide and heavy metals like zinc and copperreached the Tisza River Entering the Hungarian territory and conflicting in the Danube. Following his course he came to pollute the banks of the countries he crossed, until he returned to Romania and touch Ukrainian to the mouth on the Black Sea. Between the causes of the accident, structural deficiencies and the lack of control of the levels of the mud containment basin, combined with excessive rainfall. Although it is remembered as the worst European industrial accident since Chernobyl times, This disaster has contributed to structure more restrictive European standards for industrial sites.
The mining activities of the Aurul and the spill of Cianuro
The area of Baia Mare and the north-west of Romania have one centuries -old mining traditionparticularly after the Second World War and the development of the local industry. At the end of the 90s, the Romanian-Australian Joint Venture Aurul was interested in the possibility of exploit the processing material accumulated over the decades by these industries: it was Scraps containing Golden hamlets but hardly workablesaid “Tailings”.
In May 1999 the company started the treatment of waste using the cyanidetechnique capable of extract the remaining gold: the sludge produced by this further process were then conveyed in a special basin in the countryside of nearby Bozinta Mare.
As soon as 8 months after the start of activitieson January 30th, The walls of the collection basin collapsed. The sludge fired first of all in the surrounding land and in small rivers of the region (the Săsar, which leads to Lurny and from this in the Some master), and then be transported to the Tisa/Tizsa river, a more size course that borders in Hungary Finally, conflicting in the Danube, from which the banks of all the countries crossed: the Hungary itself, the Yugoslavia (Serbian territories of the Serbian-Montenegrin Federation, then dissolved) and the Bulgariato return to Romania and lap the Ukraine to the mouth on the Black Sea.
The causes of the collapse and the European response
Under accusation by the Hungarian authorities, the Aurul company defended himself by blaming the excessive rainfall: subsequent investigations demonstrated however deficiencies in construction of the collection basin and organizational shortcomings, such as theabsence of monitoring of the levels of the pelvis. Just 5 weeks later, a second accident involved the extraction plants of BAIA bagalways in Romania, following a new wave of rainfall.
The two close accidents, combined with spilling took place a couple of years earlier ad Aznalcóllar in Spain (1998), they influenced theIntroduction of more restrictive rules For European industrial sites: in 2001 proposals were launched Changes to the so -called Seveso II directivewhich will then be replaced in 2003 by the most recent 2003/105/EC currently in force.
The consequences for habitats and human beings
Muds contained heavy metals, pollutants already present in local rivers due to historic mining activities, but the greatest impact was certainly that of cyanide.
The revealed concentrations were of 50 mg/l in the Lurny River2 mg/l in the Yugoslav (Serbian) section of Tizsa. Even At the Delta del Danube, 2000 km downstream of the place of the accident, levels of cyanide of cyanide were measured 005 mg/l (50 μg/l). To give an idea of the scope of the disaster, the latter is the maximum value provided for a drinking water by Italian law: after the disaster of Baia Mare, for hundreds of km along the previous rivers, the values therefore oscillated between 40 and 1000 times this limit.
These very high concentrations of cyanide caused the death of 1241 tons of fish in Hungary aloneby poisoning or killing thousands of predatory animals (such as swans and geese, foxes, launc -) along the banks of the rivers.
The level of devastation of the habitats was also worse of that of the last great disaster in Eastern Europe, that of Chernobyl centralbut with fortunately effects reduced over time: If in the 2000 Some studies recorded only 63 specimens of 12 species of fish in the Someread river, Already in 2004 yes it is returned to more than 4000 individuals of 23 different species.
The impact on the river communities was however enormous, starting from fishing bans The impossibility of use of groundwater in contact with the waters of the Tisza and Danube: these rivers, the largest in Hungary, were at the time a source of drinking water for 2.5 million of citizens and a source of income for 15,000 fishermen.
