his phone was buzzing with messages from frightened locals "There is no dam," he told one caller that held back a reservoir of deadly "red mud" a caustic byproduct of aluminium extraction and a million cubic metres of the slime was rushing toward Devecser Within minutes the town was overcome: cars washed down streets and residents lay stricken on the roofs of their ruined homes The "red mud disaster" claimed 10 lives An aerial view of the broken dyke of a reservoir containing red sludge from aluminium factory is seen near Ajka on 8 October 2010 Photograph: Balazs Mohai/APThree years later Tamás is standing atop Devecser's parish hall looking out on a new park marking the ruined area Next to it is a 30-hectare poplar copse whose trees are used to heat 87 homes built just eight months after the disaster A girl plays on a swing next to the newly built ecumenical chapel designed by late Hungarian architect Imre Makovecz in the eco housing estate built after the Ajka alumina plant accident in Devecser Photograph: Zsolt Szigetvary/EPAFrom an environmental disaster zone Devecser has become a model town for sustainable energy who worked seven days a week and slept just three hours each night for two years after the flood His town is now at the forefront of a push for waste-to-energy systems According to environmental consultants Ecoprog there are 2,200 waste-to-energy plants worldwide with a disposal capacity of around 255m tons of waste per year A political conservative whose family made their fortune in agriculture Tamás has used the red mud disaster to reshape Devecser as a hub for green energy and local produce – combining cutting-edge technology with ancient nous Each summer a team of 12 workers cuts down the poplars and puts them through two mulching machines which cost Devecser €15,000 (£12,500) each designed for free by the late Hungarian architect Imre Makovecz was part of a disaster relief that cost Victor Orbán's national government some 127bn Hungarian Forints Only the bricks used to build the houses weren't sourced locally a blot that clearly irks Tamás: a local brickmaker whose factory billows beyond the new-builds couldn't make bricks for Devecser's biting winter "For me it's very important to use a clean source of heating energy here," says Támas "Secondly my concern was to use locally-available sources of energy We shouldn't use natural gas from the Caucasus in a pipeline Geothermal energy – which makes use of heat in the Earth – has been put to use heating a bus terminus that throngs with locals at rush-hour "The mayor is superhuman," says Jennervé Pál Szilvia and hopes his methods can bring back locals who left for cities during socialist industrialisation Then we can make it certain that all our public institutions use local produce It's healthier than the stuff you can buy at Tesco." This year the town is installing a solar vegetable dehydration plant which will help spur demand for local produce even further And the poplars are expected to turn in even more energy "There's a long way to come before we can be a model of sustainability," says Tamás "But we need to start somewhere." Today is the 80th anniversary of the establishment of Jewish ghettos in Hungary Here we recall the life of an almost completely forgotten figure of Jewish history Gábor Deutsch was born in Karcag, Hungary in 1909. He completed his studies in Kecskemét and at the Rabbinical College in Budapest. As a newly ordained rabbi, he became Chief Rabbi of the community of Devecser in Veszprém county. In 1941, the community had 203 members (4.6 percent of the population).[1] In addition to leading his community mainly in the Magyar Zsidó Szemle (Hungarian Jewish Review) he was a field chaplain of the Hungarian army at the time He was also apparently on good terms with the Christian communities in the area and when the Reformed pastor Kálmán Varga was installed in the nearby town of Ajka in April 1937 Deutsch also gave a speech alongside representatives of the various local Christian denominations the director of a local bank and president of the Devecser congregation but also the local parish priest and the chief notary Devecser was a loudly pro-Hungarian orator and commemorated the tragic Treaty of Trianon at least on one occasion he was apparently familiar with and appreciated the writings of Zionist authors such as Martin Buber and supported the teaching of Hebrew among young people he also welcomed the Jewish scout movement especially its values of religious education was undoubtedly his campaign against communism (or bolshevism drew parallels between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in one of his speeches made in 1936: a devastating campaign is being waged against all positive religions especially Judaism; in the cultivated Northwest in the leading state of culture and civilization the foundations are being laid for a third empire of intolerance he also scourged the age of materialism and ‘moral retrogression’: ‘In these days of the most terrible moral decline even in the midst of our sufferings and humiliations the greatest treasures of faith and morality The most thorough summary of his views was his study on Judaism and Bolshevism published in 1937.[2] In his introduction the rabbi did not deny that he wrote the booklet because many people argued that the doctrines of communism ‘fall on fertile ground among the members of our denomination’ and therefore ‘we consider it timely to prove that the classical revelations of the Jewish religious ethos the Scriptures and the Talmud are opposed sharply to the basic doctrines of Bolshevism’ the ‘historical materialism that underlies Bolshevism is separated by an unbridgeable gap from the profound idealism that pervades the whole of biblical and rabbinic literature’ intimate relationship between creature and Creator substituted the absolute divine power with the elevation of the Party so that the individual man is not in a dependent relationship with the Supreme Being but with the all-powerful party organisation’ The rabbi’s writing condemned the totalitarian movements’ pursuit of full control which consumes the individual and independent thought ‘The man who has an independent moral responsibility cannot be condemned to sink into the machinery of the state cannot become an end in itself.’ He criticized the Soviet Union’s well-known economic policy based on nationalisation as taking away the individual’s incentive to work for his own well-being he considered forced state socialisation immoral: ‘Better a little with justice than an abundance without justice,’ he quoted the Book of Proverbs But Deutsch also criticised the ‘excesses of capitalism’. As he argued, ‘it is sufficient to refer to the economic measures of the Torah, which serve as a strong bulwark against the excesses of capitalism’.  ‘At the end of seven years, make a remission. This is the way of remission: let every creditor forgive the debt he has lent to his neighbour’ (Leviticus V. 15 f. v. 1⁠–⁠2) Deutsch’s conclusion is clear: ‘The biblical and traditional literature still expresses in many places the view that the acquisition of property and wealth is not an end in itself…The biblical state…has the task of bridging the wealth gap but in a spirit of love for one’s neighbour Among all nations there have always been privileged social classes in fighting against the present economic and social order is in fact striving for new privileges and is preparing once again for the imperialist domination of a single class saved Deutsch from the deportations of 1944: atheists and religious Zionists and anti-Zionists were all put on the train The ghettoization of Devecser took place between 24 and 31 May 1944 before the inhabitants were taken to the ghetto in Pápa and finally transported to Auschwitz on 4 July About forty deportees from Devecser survived the Holocaust His name is on the memorial wall of the local victims of the Shoah On National Holocaust Memorial Day let us also remember this forgotten martyr of Hungarian and Jewish history [1] Anna Gergely, ‘Devecser’, In: A magyarországi holokauszt földrajzi enciklopédiája, II. vol, Randolph L. Braham (ed.), Park, Budapest, 2007. pp. 1294⁠–⁠1296 [2] Gábor Deutsch Zsidóság és bolsevizmus: világnézeti tanulmány Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective I shoot any kind of image that my boss tells me to: protests I have been taking photographs since I was a teenager but at first I only shot pictures of anything that didn’t move and wasn’t alive It was one of my biggest challenges later on to learn to photograph the human face and figure and capture motion in a still image My camera became another limb while I was in high school and there was little question that I would go on to a photography school after I graduated Classes for me were mostly just paperwork though I learnt at the daily newspapers where I was an intern I learnt a tremendous amount from the old-school photographers and editors who worked with me and who gave me an opportunity to go out into the field and publish any photographs that were good It may be sad but I don’t remember my first assignment When I went out into the field with senior photographers it was their assignment but sometimes I got a frame or two published as well typically human-interest pieces - an old woman with her chickens in her back yard One early breakthrough in my career came in 1998 when nobody on staff at the paper where I was interning had time to go and cover a flood in the Ukraine I went and did the story and published a multi-page feature in my paper at the time came back to Budapest and published the entire lot in one batch That experience taught me to seize the opportunity and take the jobs nobody else wants The assignment that left the biggest mark on me was the toxic flood of red mud in the Hungarian villages of Devecser and Kolontar Not only was I able to focus on one single story for a few days but my coverage also gained exposure I had never achieved before It was the first time I felt the effect a global news agency can have on a local community Sending these images to the far corners of the globe helped humanitarian groups collect millions in donations to help the reconstruction so the people affected could somehow restart their lives It felt great to be a part of that chain of events the biggest challenge for me was to learn to document human stories I had to learn to engage with people on an emotional level to show more than just their outer shells The piece might be about a family getting ready to go on a religious holiday a woman going through plastic surgery or tourists getting drunk on a Friday night – there’s always more to the story When I do my job right you get the feeling you know what I’m showing you you never know who your viewer will be; it might be someone in a small village in Brazil or a skyscraper in Hong Kong My job is to tell the story as vividly as possible and leave as few questions unanswered as possible My biggest lesson has been learning to save my files immediately Never leave images on your memory card and go out on an assignment again saying “I’ll do it later” – that’s how you lose images or run out of space In other words: respect the work you have already done and have the diligence to make sure you don’t lose it George Simion will face Nicusor Dan, a mainstream candidate, in a run-off There are five luxuries it can no longer feasibly afford Friedrich Merz’s career is one of unforced errors and puzzling missteps. But he is serious about Europe Both Donald Trump and Ukraine’s diplomats will consider it a success Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Thousands of cubic meters of the industrial sludge spilled from a broken reservoir at an aluminum factory in Hungary At least four people are dead and hundreds are being treated for chemical burns Local residents are rescued by excavators next to a gas station while firefighters in the foreground wade through the mud in Devecser after a reservoir containing red mud of the alumina factory in nearby Ajka broke and the poisonous chemical sludge inundated some 400 family houses in Devecser A Hungarian soldier wearing a chemical protection gear walks through a street flooded by toxic in the town of Devecser Monday's flooding was caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary and has affected seven towns near the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in the town of Ajka 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest cleans a street flooded by toxic in the town of Devecser A local resident is helped by firefighters on the shovel of an excavators in Devecser after a reservoir containing red mud of the alumina factory in nearby Ajka broke and the poisonous chemical sludge inundated some 400 family houses in Devecser People save belongings from their homes flooded by toxic mud in the Kolontar Monday's flooding was caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary and has affected seven towns near the Ajkai 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest The flood of toxic mud killed a yet unknown number of people A villager puts on a protective mask in front of his house flooded by toxic mud in the Kolontar A third person has died in flooding caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary Six people were missing and 120 injured in what officials said was an ecological disaster The government declared a state of emergency in three counties affected by the flooding Local residents make their way near mud flowing in a street of Devecser after a reservoir containing red mud of the alumina factory in nearby Ajka broke and the poisonous chemical sludge inundated some 400 family houses in Devecser A villager checks his yard flooded by toxic mud in the Kolontar Monday's flooding was caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary and has affected seven towns near the Ajkai 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest The flood of toxic mud killed a yet unknown number of people A rescue helicopter lands on the road at the edge of the village of Kolontar where several houses were flooded by toxic mud Monday's flooding was caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary and has affected seven towns near Ajkai 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest The flood of toxic mud killed killed a yet unknown number of people walks into their yard flooded by toxic mud in the town of Devecser Monday's flooding was caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary and has affected seven towns near the Ajkai Timfoldgyar plant in the town of Ajka 100 miles (160 kilometers) southwest of Budapest Monday's flooding was caused by the rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary and has affected seven towns near Ajkai The flood of toxic mud killed killed a yet unknown number of people “Justice is distorted when the victim pays for the conduct of the accused,” said the Special Rapporteur on toxic waste at the end of his information-gathering mission to Hungary – the first of its kind – in which he investigated the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management of hazardous substances and wastes without improved accountability of some of the highly polluting industries in Hungary people will remain at the mercy of some of these companies that evade liability and instead it is innocent people who will bear the brunt of the impact and pay with their health The Ajka aluminium plant incident remains the country’s greatest industrial accident and ecological catastrophe, affected the communities of Kolontár and Devecser, with fatalities, injuries to residents and volunteers, and extensive environmental damage that so far has cost some $910million to remediate, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Georgescu focused on the consequences of the Ajka industrial incident He noted that despite the Government’s efforts to eliminate or mitigate the consequences of the incident communities living in Devecser and Kolontár are still demanding reparations I am satisfied to note that judicial proceedings brought by affected communities against the company responsible for the reservoir are currently undergoing,” Mr Georgescu stressed that more needs to be done including the strengthening of the Directorate for Disaster Management to have greater enforcement jurisdiction over the industries it now sees “Hungary offers a test case of lessons learned It is of the utmost importance that Hungary continues monitoring the state of the environment and the health of populations that are in close proximity to facilities that produce or use hazardous substances,” the expert said “Highly polluting industries and companies must be held more accountable for their conduct in the infringement of the fundamental rights of innocent populations in areas where they operate.” Georgescu said he received concerns about metallurgic plants in the northern part of the country that are operating in close proximity to the population as well as recycling plants that are emitting hazardous fumes “I raised these concerns with the Government during my visit and am pleased to share that it committed to looking further at these reports,” he said Georgescu also held meetings with a wide range of stakeholders including Government officials and civil society organizations and visited communities in Kolontár and Devecser Independent experts, or special rapporteurs like Mr. Georgescu, are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back Georgescu is scheduled to present his conclusions and recommendations to the Council in September next year You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Devecser and Somlóvásárhely – in less than 40 minutes The reservoir holding the red mud was 40 metres higher than the surrounding countryside so the wave of red mud was still two metres high when it reached houses in Devecser Kolontár was inundated without any warning The majority of the fatalities occurred when the victims were overcome by a wave of mud higher than themselves received a phone call about what was happening with the mud but the water of the Torna Brook was already red and the water level was rising second by second Here the flood of mud inundated more than 200 houses and nearly 800 people had to leave their homes we know of eight fatalities and about 200 persons injured – the alkalinity of the red mud caused injuries similar to burns Personal stories about the dead and injured show how unexpected the catastrophe was but there are good examples of human self-sacrifice as well One man was killed when he went to help others but the red mud swept him away with his car Women held their children above the flood and were themselves burnt by the red mud People escaped from the mud by climbing trees and onto houses and cars The red mud is dangerous for several reasons The most critical problem is that the mud has a high pH because of the sodium hydroxide solution used in the refining process the alkalinity of the red mud has been registered at pH 13 or higher on a scale of 0 to 14 the alkalinity of the red mud is a million times higher than that of water This alkalinity resulted in burns on victims and killed most plants and animals in the affected area The red mud got into the Marcal River through the Torna Brook and practically exterminated flora and fauna in the river Here was where the defence against alkalinity began with various acids and neutral materials being added to the water to neutralize the alkaline effects vinegar and hydrochloric acid helped neutralise the water and decrease the damage in the Marcal and Rába rivers and at the mouth of the Danube Nonetheless it seems the pollution reached the lower drift line of the Danube and killed fish in Budapest as well Three more problems appear in connection with the red mud Unfortunately the measurements of the heavy-metal content related to the red mud were different every time in the same way as the declarations Though official results contend that the heavy-metal content of the red mud is safe according to specialists from Pannon University chromium and cobalt exceed accepted limits Their measurements also showed small amounts of mercury cadmium and other toxic heavy metals.The second problem is the potential radioactivity of the red mud Though the radioactivity of the red mud exceeds the natural limit measurements in the affected areas were comforting and always under the limit for human safety a new characteristic of the red mud emerged The red mud particles have high heavy-metal content and alkalinity The problem is that a significantly higher proportion of red mud is respirable than other fusions and substances The quantity of red mud is about 100,000 tonnes The alkalinity of the dust reaches pH 11–12 and particles could have even higher alkalinity because the masks worn by volunteers and workers cannot filter dust this fine.                                                           The moderation of damage and restoration began after the catastrophe The immediate task was to reduce the alkalinity of the water Removal of the red mud from the affected area has begun but could take months due to the extent of the area reached by the mud It is highly unlikely that the clean-up will be complete A few days later another hazard was reported the pressure in the reservoirs changed and the entire population of the village of Kolontar was resettled and experts began building a new dam which could save a large part of the village from a second dam break People in the neighbouring village of Devecser were allowed to stay in their homes but have to be ready for resettlement owing to the high potential of a dam break The mud catastrophe caused an environmental and human tragedy and the future of this countryside is also in doubt It could be that everybody will leave Kolontar because inhabitants of the affected villages do not want to live there anymore Starting over in houses which escaped structural damage is also questionable because of the shock effect and environmental contamination The population of the village of Devecser fell one third in one week The newly elected mayor of Devecser won the elections on his self-preservation programme which is now completely impossible on mud-flooded inner- and outer-fields the catastrophe has drawn attention to other areas because three additional similar red-mud ponds are located in Hungary One of these is next to the Danube in Almásfüzitő where more than 12 million tonnes of red mud were placed According to a scientific publication about the area the reservoir is not equipped with adequate technical protection and the red mud is in contact with the ground water which continuously flows into the Danube parts of the dams can be observed to be shifting and sliding civic organisations immediately demanded a review of similar reservoirs because a few days later it emerged that the leakage from the pond in Ajka had been seen in satellite images months earlier and the catastrophe could have been prevented expert assessments have been found which warned of the potential dangers at the reservoir years ago This obviously questions the liability of the operating company and the Hungarian environmental authorities did not accept responsibility for the catastrophe and their 10 million Ft insurance is ridiculously low compared to the 10 billion or 100 billion Ft in damage caused by the mud flood the company’s CEO was arrested and the company may come temporarily under state control Hungarian environmental authorities question the effectiveness of monitoring and licensing it would be a mistake to blame only the company and the authorities for the red mud catastrophe The red mud is a by-product of the production and usage of aluminium for which there is still no solution Producing one tonne of aluminium creates two tonnes of red mud it seems irresponsible to use a metal with such a high environmental burden for such purposes as disposable packaging for food and beverages This implicates consumers as well as manufacturers The red mud catastrophe is one of Hungary’s largest ecological disasters The red mud-covered fields made everyone understand the real effects of environmental damage if the daily but less-visible pollution of the air and chemicals in our lives were as visible as the red mud maybe the recent disaster would not have occurred either.Szuhi Attila – is an expert on waste management who works for the Waste Working Alliance (Hulladék  Munkaszövetség) MaďarskoJugoslávská 567/16120 00 Praha 2Česká republika Tel: +420 251 814 173E-mail:  info@cz.boell.orgIČO: 86594141 MapSubscribe to our newsletter Three people were missing and 10 were taken to hospital, two with serious injuries. The sludge was a waste product from the Ajkai Timfoldgyar Zrt alumina plant, owned by MAL Zrt. No one from the company was available for comment yesterday. Gyorgy Bakos, a Veszprem county disaster control spokesman, said about 600-700m litres of sludge had escaped and 300-400 residents of the villages could be affected. A state of emergency has been declared in Hungary after a flood of toxic red sludge engulfed several towns killing at least four people. Emergency workers wearing masks and chemical protection gear have been brought in to deal with the disaster. It happened on Monday when a massive sludge reservoir burst its banks at an alumina plant in Ajka. At least four people, including a toddler, are dead while six are missing and more than a hundred others are injured. Many people suffered burns when the toxic red sludge went through their clothes. Hundreds of residents have been evacuated and a state of emergency has been declared. These shoes are the only thing I have left. I lost everything. Devecser resident The torrent of toxic red sludge inundated homes in the town of Devecser, swept cars off roads and damaged bridges. One thousand tonnes of plaster have been poured into the Marcal River in an attempt to bind the sludge and stop it flowing into the Danube around 45 miles away. Some desperate villagers waded through the toxic red sludge in an attempt to salvage possessions: “These shoes are the only thing I have left. I lost everything and they don’t even let me go to my house”, said one Devecser resident. One official described it as an “ecological disaster” that may threaten the Danube and other key rivers. It is estimated that so far 35.3 million cubic feet of sludge has leaked from the reservoir affecting an estimated 15.4 square miles. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban acknowledged that the authorities were caught off guard by the disaster, telling reporters the alumina plant and reservoir had been inspected two weeks earlier and no irregularities had been found. Red sludge is a by-product of the refining of bauxite into alumina, the basic material for manufacturing aluminium. Representatives from industry organisations in London and the U.S could not explain why the Hungarian victims were burned by the material, saying if it is properly treated it is not hazardous. It is common to store treated sludge in ponds where the water eventually evaporates, leaving behind a dried red clay-like soil, the officials said. MAL Rt., the Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company that owns the Ajka plant, said that according to European Union standards, red sludge is not considered hazardous waste. The company also denied that it should have taken more precautions to shore up the reservoir, a huge structure more than 1,000 feet long and 500 yards wide, and high enough to dwarf trees that survived the torrent. Clean-up begins: A woman surveys the damage in the village of Devecser (Attila Kisbenedek : AFP) Link copiedShareShare articleHungarian officials say it could take up to a year to clean up toxic sludge that inundated several villages in the country's west. Four people died when a dam wall burst, sending a tide of red mud from an aluminium plant reservoir surging through fields and villages about 160 kilometres south-west of the capital Budapest. Emergency workers have stepped up their efforts to contain the spill, which left about 120 people injured, and police say Hungary's top investigative agency is taking over the inquiry. The investigation is looking into possible criminal negligence among workers at the plant. The devastation from what officials say is Hungary's worst-ever chemical accident is spread across an area of 40 square kilometres and officials say the cost of the clean-up and reconstructions could reach millions of euros. "The clean-up and reconstruction could take months, even a year," environment secretary Zoltan Illes said. Karoly Tily, the mayor of Kolontar, the village where all four victims died, declared Wednesday a day of mourning. The company which owns the reservoir, the Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company (MAL), said it would foot the costs of the funerals. A spokeswoman for the disaster relief services, Timea Petroczi, said the drinking water system has not been affected, but "as a precautionary measure, people are not allowed to use the water wells". Residents are also banned from eating any home-grown produce or from hunting or fishing in the region. Eyewitnesses said the force of the wave was so strong that cars were sucked out from their garages and it tore out windows and doors, covering everything. "I've lost everything. We've lost everything," said one man standing in front of the remains of his house. On Wednesday, two days after the disaster, cars, debris and dead animals still littered streets and fields. "It is still chaos here, nobody knows what to do or where to start," said one volunteer worker. "I think it's a disgrace. Things are going so slowly. "The flood was on Monday and now on Wednesday we're still waiting for orders." 1m 46sRelated topicsDisasters, Accidents and Emergency Incidents Topic:Food and Beverage Processing Industry CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) Hungarian police and soldiers evacuated 800 villagers yesterday as authorities feared a second flood of toxic sludge from a chemicals plant was likely after new cracks appeared in a dyke a village close to the reservoir that burst in western Hungary last Monday injuring scores more and poisoning rivers in the country’s worst ecological disaster The despairing and angry villagers were taken by bus to Akja the nearest major town which is 160 kilometres from the capital Budapest Many placed the blame on MAL Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company which runs the plant whose sludge had swept through their homes “I feel really angry at the company because I feel they’re irresponsible,” said Jozsef Lengyel who was released from hospital last Thursday after being treated for burns on his lower body “I feel they think I’m stupid when they say this sludge isn’t dangerous because I’ve been burned up to my waist,” the evacuated villager told AFP Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Akja and admitted that another flood of toxic sludge seemed inevitable “The reservoir is so damaged that it is likely that it will give way for a second time,” Orban said about 500,000 cubic metres will be released Several cracks are visible from the north side of the reservoir,” he said The first flood on October 4 released 1.1 million cubic metres of foul-smelling blood-red toxic sludge into villages and rivers Security forces also warned thousands of villagers in nearby Devecser to be ready to move if necessary “The evacuation of Kolontar began at six in the morning after we noticed that the dam started weakening at tank number 10,” Disaster Relief Team chief Tibor Dobson told AFP One of the new cracks was seven centimetres wide with helicopters with heat-detecting cameras in the air and 650 policemen on the ground co-ordinating rescue operations please register for free or log in to your account The firefighter brigade in Devecser received a new fire truck as a donation from Switzerland the volunteer fire brigade of the town is now one of the most equipped fire brigades nationwide” – said mayor Gábor Ferenczi at the handover ceremony of the vehicle The mayor highlighted that the town of Devecser would not have been able to afford such a vehicle from their own resources within the foreseeable future it certainly makes the Devecser volunteer fire brigade one of the most equipped ones in Hungary So far we’ve been asking for help for obtaining a new truck in vain and member of the Swiss-Hungarian friendship branch told us about the offering from Switzerland” – the mayor said about the antecedents The donor, Swiss John McGough told us how happy he was to help. “Switzerland is famous for helping other nations and therefore I would also like to show gratitude for my family with the 280 million HUF (~907,800 euro) worth donation to Hungary.” Gábor Staudt expressed his pleasure that the actively working Swiss-Hungarian friendship branch was able to help and thus politics could be useful He believes a politician’s job is to help the economy the same way non-governmental organisations do and they have to bring people together whenever it is possible then local communities can take care of the rest Chairman for the Firefighting Association claims that the association’s development will increase with the help of the new truck He said that they collaborate in the liquidation of damage 35-40 times a year representative of Standard Oil assured the attendees that the company will pay for the costs of the maintenance of the previous truck of the association will grant a parking place and will support the association in other ways and website in this browser for the next time I comment Y"},"category":false,"taxonomy":{"active":false,"name":"category"}},"markup":{"custom_html":true,"wpp-start":"","wpp-end":"<\/ul>","title-start":"","title-end":"<\/h2>","post-html":"{thumb} {title} {stats}<\/span>{excerpt}<\/p><\/li>"},"theme":{"name":""}} You have successfully joined our subscriber list SupportUs Newsletter © 2025 DailyNewsHungary | All rights reserved