4 replies to this topic

[mikeb226]

Hello, all.

Not sure if this is the right place to put this.....

I am very curious about this sludge flood disaster in Hungary ( http://news.yahoo.co...ry_sludge_flood )

Naturally, due to the media's aversion/ignorance of mapping, I have not been able to find any maps of the disaster area. Well, I did find one, but it was just a screenshot of google maps.

So my question is this: What direction did the flow of sludge go to hit a tributary of the Danube?

From just a ten minute look at Google Earth and my extremely limited knowledge of the area, wouldn't the sludge have to go through the Balaton Lake before hitting the Danube?

I'm a little confused here. Can someone more familiar with the area and its topography help me out?

I'm only asking because of personal curiosity and because we have been working with flood and stormwater management a lot here, so understanding the flow of this is just another example of the characteristics of a flood.

Thanks!!
~mike

[l.jegou]

Hello, here is a map of Hungary waterways :

http://www.euvki.hu/...lleklet_11e.gif

Edit : A zoomed portion with the village of Kolontar

As you can see, the watershed is sloping down to the north, drained by the Marcal river and the Danube. The Balaton lake is shielded by a range of hills.

Edit : the Google Lat/long blog has posted before/after images : http://google-latlon...udge-spill.html

[mikeb226]

Oh, wow, Thanks!

The Ikonos imagery certainly make it more understandable the extent of the disaster.

From the news reports, it was made to seem that the entire town of Kolontar was flooded, when in reality, it was just under a quarter of the town flooded..

[scottcole2]

Hello, thanks for this great link to the watershed surrounding the sludge spill and the northward flowing watershed. Very useful. I am wondering if you could place the facility on that map also ? Or at least give me a rough idea of where it sits ? I have the following lat/long from a Google Earth Map:

47.086605
17.497616

I'm wondering for example if the sludge passed through one of the smaller tributaries before it got into the Marcal (and then Raba and then Danube) or if it went directly into the Marcal (via the village of Kolontar of course)?

thanks
scott

[SteveR]

Here's a nice picture of it:

http://earthobservat...mp;src=eoa-iotd