Svetlana is right. In the West, legislation requires specific safety measures to be in place to guard against possible public hazards, a free press generally makes sure that known hazards are not forgotten about, and free elections ensure that politicians ignore such things at the risk of losing office. But despite such an ethic being in place for generations already, corruption, apathy and/or greed (spending money on accidents that haven’t yet happened cuts into profits that could otherwise be reaped immediately) means that even in most Western countries, avoidable public calamities happen regularly. Unfortunately, the likelihood for these is much greater in nations that have freed themselves from Communist rule, because such countries have lived for generations under an ethos where human life was of little value, the “masses” (what a horrible word!) were often held in not much greater regard than cattle, corruption was rife, authority was discredited, altruism was a foreign concept, and personal initiative, especially personal initiative in the cause of reform, was strongly discouraged. As a result of being forced by Soviet control to become oriented to such beggarly values, such countries contain many public disasters simply waiting to happen, and of course Russia itself tops the list. One is sometimes lucky in that the potential dangers do not always become actual ones. In the present case, Hungary was unlucky. The only remedy that I know of to this kind of brooding danger involves relentless and courageous reforms on the level of legislation, law enforcement, a massive re-education of people to the principles of occupational health and safety, encouragement and rewarding of personal initiative including personal initiative in unmasking governmental and workplace incompetence, credible and respected civil governance and a courageous free press. Countries that follow such values will have fewer calamities to mourn; those that don’t will have more.

We have more serious problems to draw our attention to - the Hungarian toxic sludge disaster and its devastating consequences for whole Europe. The good Samaritans ( of journalism) in Russia, where are you?