Hungary seeks pollution damages

Tonnes of dead fish have been removed from the Tisza

By Nick Thorpe in Budapest

Hungary has announced that it intends to lay charges against the Romanian owners of a gold mine that caused Europe's worst ever river pollution disasters.

Some people had their water supplies cut off

The government is claiming £100m in damages from Aurul.

In a separate development, the new Romanian environment minister has fired the head of the environmental protection department in the county where the accident occurred.

The breach in the wall of a mine storage lake near Baia Mare in northern Romania occurred on the night of the 30 January last year.

A heavy snowfall combined with weeks of rain broke the dyke. But a European Union report published recently also blamed design faults.

Suffering continues

About 130,000 cubic metres of cyanide-tainted water flowed into nearby rivers and caused most destruction in the River Tisza in neighbouring Hungary.

But one year on, the population in the villages around the mine are still suffering from what they say is the daily pollution from the gold, lead and copper extraction processes in the region.

Thousands of tons of fish perished

Aurul was allowed to restart operations in June last year, five months after the disaster, with a temporary permit issued by the regional environmental protection agency.

And it was the president of this agency, Ioan Gerhes, who was sacked on Tuesday by the new Romanian Environment Minister, Aurel Constantin Ilie, who accused him of incompetence in dealing with the aftermath of last year's accident.