The biggest catastrophes in Hungary – photos

Which one was the biggest plane crash, boat crash, railway disaster and industrial accident in Hungary? And do we know today the causes or are there details which have not been cleared even until now? Check the below article for the details.

The biggest plane crash

It happened on 6 August 1961 that a MALÉV HA-TSA plane crashed into a building in Zugló, 14th district of Budapest. The horrific impact caused the death of all the staff (4) and passengers (23) travelling on the plane and three bicycle-repairing youngsters on the yard of the building. They were hit by the tail of the aircraft which broke off after the hit. According to what we know, the crash

happened because of human error:

there were too many passengers on board. Furthermore, apart from the pilots, there were some additional people in the cockpit for which the plane became down by head causing serious problems while doing manoeuvres over the city.

In fact, though press controlled by the communist party wrote very little about the issue, people were shocked by the crash resulting in a steep shrink of sightseeing plane tours. Many legends took wind because of the crash. For example, many stated that the accident was caused by the low-quality Soviet engines of the plane, but Communist propaganda wanted to protect Moscow; therefore they blamed the pilots. However, the aircraft was made in the United States, and it was captured and confiscated in 1951 after violating Hungarian and Romanian airspace.

The biggest industrial accident

It is widely regarded to have been the Ajka alumina sludge spill on 4 October 2010 in Ajka, Veszprém County, in Western-Hungary. The accident happened when

the dam of a caustic waste reservoir collapsed,

freeing approximately 1 million cubic metres of liquid waste from red mud lakes. The mud flooded nearby settlements Kolontár and Devecser and caused the death of 10 people while 150 people were injured. The spill affected 40 square kilometres (15 sq mi) of land and reached even the Danube.

As we reported before, a court has found ten people guilty in a retrial of the disaster. In the Győr court’s non-final ruling, eight were sentenced to prison, six of them receiving suspended terms.