violent storm forced panic-stricken crowds to flee and seek cover during a fireworks display over the Danube river.
Fallen trees and branches still littered several streets in the Hungarian capital on Monday, August 21, hours after the storm, with lightning, heavy rain and gale force winds of up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) ravaged Budapest. The storm started during a fireworks show marking St. Stephen’s Day, a national day named after the king who brought Christianity and Hungarian statehood here over 1,000 years ago.
"The storm claimed three lives and there are some 250 being treated at hospitals according to the current information," Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky told journalists after an emergency meeting earlier on Monday, August 21. Later in the day, the number of reported injuries rose to over 280. Among the dead was a 12-year old girl, while at least seven children were still listed in "critical condition", news reports said.
The storm began Sunday around 2100 local time as a crowd of hundreds of thousands gathered in the Hungarian capital on both banks of the Danube river to watch the display. Soon tens of thousands of people began to run for cover when the extend of the storm became clear. "I was scared to death because of the huge winds and I also feared that I would be trampled on by the crowd. People were screaming everywhere," Nora Kvasz, who witnessed the fireworks in front of the parliament building on the banks of the Danube. told reporters.
Many parents lost their children in the chaos, police said as rescue workers tried to safe lives. "The ambulance services were called to many locations and numerous injuries were reported," Hungarian News Agency MTI quoted the Hungarian Disaster Management Authority as saying.
In a statement the Hungarian Fire Department said at least two died when a large tree fell on a crowd of spectators. "A large tree fell on the crowd and two people died, two are in critical condition, two others suffered serious injuries while three others have lighter injuries," Peter Molnar, a spokesman for the fire department reportedly said.
FOREIGNERS ALSO INJURED
In addition one person reportedly died in the storm on the Pest side of the Danube embankment. On Monday, August 21, police searched for two people missing after their speed boat capsized on the Danube river.
Two foreign nationals – a man and a woman – were among those injured treated by ambulance paramedics near the Erzsebet bridge, one of several key bridges dividing the Buda and Pest sites of the capital cut in two by the Danube River, MTI said.
Others were injured when a storm caused the roof of a journalist’s tribune to crash down, injuring several people, while elsewhere spectators panicked and crowded into a nearby underground station, causing injuries in an apparent stampede.
People were also trapped when the storm uprooted trees and sent mobile vendors’ tents flying as thousands ran for cover to escape the downpour
As the storm continued, ships collided on the Danube river, throwing people overboard. Four people were rescued from the river, while one was missing, several sources reported. "It was a miracle we survived," Boglar Laszlo, prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s press chief, who was also on a ship during the fireworks, told the French News Agency AFP. Others were trapped under uprooted trees amid scenes of chaos in the Hungarian capital.
"We have an emergency, people were reported injured and there are ambulance and fire truck sirens wailing all over the city," Molnar said.
TILES FROM ROOFTOPS
There were also reports that tiles blown from rooftops of buildings injured several people, but no figures were immediately available. Local authorities were expected to come under pressure as Hungary’s Meteorological Service announced it had warned organizers that a violent storm was approaching the capital. Budapest Mayor Demszky promised an investigation into why the event continued and why the public had not been warned.
Demszky gave permission for the fire worksdisplay and the chaos came before municipal elections October 1 when he hopes to be reelected as mayor. The unprecedented storm overshadowed a day marked by prayers and calls for more tolerance. Just hours before the violent storm Catholic Cardinal Peter Erdo celebrated an open-air mass in front of Budapest’s Basilica in memory of St Stephen.
Erdo, head of the Hungarian Catholic Church, said nearly 1.4 million people joined the Hungarian Catholic Church’s initiative for a year of prayer for spiritual renewal of the nation throughout 2006. Archbishop of Krakow Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former personal secretary of the late Pope John Paul II, also held a sermon.
He acknowledged the friendship of the Hungarian and the Polish people and noted that in 1956, when the anti-Communist Hungarian Revolution was crushed by Soviet soldiers, both countries fought for freedom. The ideals of both countries were eventually achieved decades later when they joined the European Union on May 1, 2004.
YEAR OF PRAYER
Hungary’s Catholic Church declared 2006 a year of prayer on December 31 last year, marking the 50th anniversary of the country’s anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, as well as the 550th anniversary of the battle of Belgrade, which saved Christian Europe from a Turkish invasion.
Politicians also urged Hungarians to use St. Stephen’s Day as a way to show more tolerance. Budapest Mayor Demszky cited King Stephen’s words to his son Prince Imre in which he said a nation of many languages was stronger than that with only one tongue.
“Similarly, Budapest is a multicultural city, where eight percent of the population belongs to some minority group and more than 60,000 foreign citizens have permanent residence,” he said in published remarks.
Demszky condemned xenophobia in the spirit of St. Stephen and said ethnic Hungarians from outside Hungary’s borders should be welcomed to seek jobs and settle down in Budapest with their families. There has been concern over reports of both anti-Semitism in Hungary and discrimination of ethnic Hungarians from neighboring countries working here. (With BosNewsLife’s Agnes R. Bos and BosNews Center in Budapest and BosNewsLife Research).
