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On January 30th

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Deepak Chaudhary
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25 views1 page

On January 30th

Uploaded by

Deepak Chaudhary
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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On January 30th, 2000, the dam containing toxic waste material from the Baia Mare Aurul

gold mine in North Western Romania burst and released 100,000 cubic meters of waste
water, heavily contaminated with cyanide, into the Lapus and Somes tributaries of the river
Tisza, one of the biggest in Hungary.

On 30 January 2000, following a breach in the tailing dam of the Aurul Baia
Mare Company, a major spill of cyanide-rich tailings waste was released
into the river system near Baia Mare in north west Romania. The
contaminant travelled via tributaries into the river Somes, Tisza and finally
into the Danube before reaching the Black Sea.

Cyanide is highly toxic and is lethal to humans and other species even in very small doses.
The cyanide contaminated water has now been carried to the river Danube which flows
through Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.

To maximize gold extraction, tailings from the new dam were


pumped back to the plant for further extraction of extremely low
levels of gold and were then pumped back to the tailing dam.

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