Cleaning Hungary after the flood of toxic mud

Quick action was taken when Hungary was hit by a terrible flood of toxic industrial mud

Quick action was taken in Nilfisk-Advance Hungary this October when a large area was hit by a terrible flood of toxic industrial mud.

The flood came from an alumina plant and the sludge (600,000-700,000 cubic metres) was a hasardous mixture of water and mining waste containing heavy metals and affecting an area of 40 sq km. At least seven villages and 7.000 people were involved when the flood swept cars from roads and damaged bridges and houses, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents.

Making a difference
To clean the area will take a tremendous effort, but using cleaning machines will make the job a little bit easier and more efficient. Therefore our Hungarian employees were quick to gather the necessary machines to donate, get in contact with the Hungarian Disaster Recovery Headquarter, get the machines delivered and supply the right training for their use.  

Some of the Nilfisk-ALTO machines were used in the border
area between the contaminated area and the not affected area.
All vehicles leaving would be cleaned to make sure that
the toxic mud would not spread any further.

Machines and training within days
Within a few days almost 20 Nilfisk-ALTO machines were delivered to the catastrophy area consisting of professional High Pressure Washers and Vacuum Cleaners with the ability to suck up wet material. In addtion to this one of our customers supported the effort with some of the Nilfisk-ALTO truck mounted High Pressure Washers.

A great help
One of the responsible leaders from the Hungarian Disaster Recovery Headquarter said: “It has been a great help for us to be able to use these very efficient machines. Without them the cleaning would have been done manually which would have taken much longer without the same efficiency. This is a job that we want done as quickly as possible, since the mud will soon become very hazardous dust, which will be even more difficult to control and is very harmful if somebody breathes it in. So thank you Nilfisk-Advance.”