Mormon segítö kezek--Mormon Helping Hands

You all wrote asking about the toxic waste disaster Oct 4 in Hungary. A dam holding back the toxic waste from an aluminum plant broke and flooded the area. It happened about 100 miles from us just south of the town of Pápa, where we had spoken in church two weeks earlier. As we Floridians know, after a hurricane or other disaster, the church gets its "Mormon helping hands" busy and sends in teams of members to help out. Here's a picture of a crew sent out a week ago. You have to be completely covered because the waste is so toxic that it burns the skin.


Here is what the left over sludge looks like in the streets of Devecser, one of the three villages that were wiped out.


Notice how high on the house the flowing sludge came.


Of course, it filled the insides of the houses too. They don't know when the area will be habitable again.


One of the "safe" tasks they gave the helping hands was to shovel lime onto the sludge to help neutralize it.


Here is what you look like after a day of using your helping hands. Our branch didn't hear about the cleanup event until afterwards so these pictures were furnished by the Haslems, the missionary couple we replaced in Sopron. We thought you'd like to see them. The yellow vests are the helping hand shirts that the members wore to keep track of each other.