Hungarian villagers living near the burial ground for thousands of cattle who were slaughtered due to a foot-and-mouth outbreak say they are worried about the impact of the carcasses on their water supply.
Hungary last week reported its first outbreak of the disease in more than five decades, and at least 3,500 cattle have been affected in the northwest of the country, near its borders with Slovakia and Austria.
Soldiers have been deployed and disinfection measures launched to contain the spread, while thousands of animals have been culled.
In Hungary’s northern county of Győr-Moson-Sopron, the carcasses of more than 3,000 animals were buried in recent days between the hamlets of Csemeztanya and Irénpuszta.
Drone footage of the burial site has been provided to Euronews by anonymous source, while other videos have been shared widely on social media. The videos show liquid and bubbling gases on the surface of the earth, which experts say is due to decomposition.
One of the videos was shared on Facebook by László Nyul, who lives in Csemeztanya — a few hundred metres away from the cemetery — with his wife and children. He told Euronews that the smell had been terrible since the animals were buried.
“We are scared, the children are scared. We put all our money into this house, it’s my parents’ house, where my parents lived when we were little,” he said.
“We wanted to get out of the city, we wanted to come out here, to a place of peace and quiet. But they are going to make it completely impossible for us to stay here.”
Nyul said he was concerned that the carcasses would contaminate wells supplying water to local farms, and appealed to Hungary’s Minister of Agriculture, István Nagy, to guarantee that local residents would receive help if they suffered due to the burial site.
Regional fears
But it’s not just those in the immediate vicinity who are worried. In Hegyeshalom, the nearest town to the cemetery, an emergency meeting was held at the mayor’s office on Sunday in response to the videos posted on social media.
The mayor, László Szőke, has appealed to the authorities for help and said he hoped that the current situation is only temporary.
“I think that the work is not finished here. But a video was made during a work process, which shows that, indeed, the grounding is not fully completed,” Szőke told Euronews.
When Euronews visited the site, there was a security company guarding the area around the burial site, and all cars passing by were being turned back.
In response to the videos, the agriculture ministry has sought to reassure the public.
Dr Szabolcs Pásztor, the national chief veterinary surgeon, said everything is being done in accordance with the regulations, and that the effects of the decomposition seen in the videos shared online is natural because of the large number of animals killed.
On Saturday, Austria closed off two dozen border crossings with its neighbours, Hungary and Slovakia, in a bid to prevent the disease from entering the country. Slovakia declared an emergency situation on Tuesday after the disease was found on three farms.
The disease poses no danger to humans and primarily affects cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals like swine, sheep and goats. Infected animals experience fever and mouth blisters as symptoms of the disease.
Outbreaks often lead to trade restrictions and culls of some livestock.
