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SALT LAKE CITY — Six months after a catastrophic industrial accident at a Hungarian alumina plant left at least nine dead and 122 injured, a photographer ventured out to document the scar the accident left on the Hungarian landscape.
In what was later called the largest environmental disaster in Hungary's history, a dam failure on Oct. 4, 2010, at a caustic waste reservoir in Ajka, Hungary, led to the release of one million cubic meters of red sludge: liquid waste from red mud lakes.
Red mud is a byproduct of the aluminum production process. The waste tore through Hungarian villages in waves of 3–7 feet, staining buildings and scarring land over 15 square miles.
The flow was powerful enough to move vehicles, and was toxic enough to extinguish all life in the Marcal River, although it was said at the time that the waste was not considered toxic by European Union standards.
Emergency workers poured plaster into waterways to prevent the sludge from moving downstream, but the damage had already been done to the towns through which the wave had passed.
Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros visited the towns affected by the spill, recording the spill's effects six months after it took place. His photos, part of a series called "The Line," show a clear delineation between the world that was and the world that was meant to be.
"(These) photos have been taken six months after the accident," he wrote on his website, "when the silence takes the place of the headlines and just The Line is left."
