However, what caused them can be established. The catastrophe can be blamed on freak weather conditions that come about once very hundred years, exacerbated by human negligence over the last few decades.

Edelény, Felsőzsolca, Szendrő, and Ócsanálos are all settlements in Borsod County that have been on everyone's lips over the last few days. The emblematic location of the 2010 floods was Edelény, which found itself in the spotlight a few months ago because of Mayor Oszkár Molnár's political scheming, as well as his success in becoming an independent parliamentary representative.   

This all seems quite irrelevant now: there stood Molnár, who had been expelled from Fidesz, on the dam next to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, with both men looking into the swirling waters that had swept away the bridge connecting the two parts of the little town, and inundated the streets of its western part, which could now only be crossed by military vehicles and lorries. In more peaceful times, the Bódva is more of a stream than a river, and has not burst its banks in living memory. 

The many other "culprits" responsible for this year's floods sound no more familiar than the Bódva: the Vadász stream, the Ronyva, Cuhai-Bakony brook, Baranya canal. The Sajó, Hernád and Zagyva rivers are better known but when has it ever happened that the Hernád swelled into a bigger river than the Danube? The rivers in Borsod County have broken a succession of highest recorded water levels, by 30-40 centimeters in some places.   

What happened? Did what climate researchers have been claiming for so long prove to be true? Is climate change causing ever more frequent episodes of extreme weather events? Or was this just an extraordinary event that takes place every hundred years? Would it have been possible to prepare for such a big flood, or was this catastrophe beyond human foresight?

Zsófia and Angéla

Although Borsod County bore the brunt of the flooding, it is nevertheless a national problem. According to the latest data when our magazine went to press, protective measures were taken in 265 settlements of 12 counties and evacuation measures affected 68 settlements. Over 3,700 people were forced to leave their homes, 90 percent of them from Borsod, but other settlements such as Csikóstőttős, Bőny in the Kisalföld Region and Pásztó in Nógrád County were also severely hit by the catastrophe.   

An especially unlucky interplay of weather conditions was needed for this situation to develop. Since rainfall records began in Hungary, there has never been so much rain in such a short time as there was this May, and so since no valid comparisons can be made there is no way to assess what the chances are of something similar occurring again. This is indisputably part of the global warming scenario with the prospect for the next twenty years being the need for ever more frequent protection against ever greater flooding.   

At the same time, we do not know if there were similar incessant periods of rain in the Carpathian basin two or three hundred years ago. According to data from the National Meteorological Service, in comparison to the average rainfall for May over the whole country between 1971 and 2000 there was 150-400 percent more precipitation this May. In the Miskolc area more than half the yearly rainfall poured down in one month. Moreover, these data only show the effect of one of the "main culprits", Cyclone Zsófia, which raged between 15 and 18 May. The second big wave of rain arrived between 31 May and 4 June with Cyclone Angéla.

The second extraordinary condition was that both cyclones dumped their load of rain on the same catchment area; the "arm" of the cyclones can be described as a semi-circular arch which stretched from the Southern Transdanubian through the Bakony Hills and the Northern Hungarian low mountain range to Borsod County. If the second cyclone had discharged its precipitation just 50 kilometers further on, such serious flooding would not have developed.

The soil was already saturated by earlier rainfall and thus could not absorb the huge quantity of rain, leading to the extreme swelling of the otherwise insignificant hill country streams (and inland water throughout the country) in the counties of Bakony, Nógrád, Heves and Borsod. Another more traditional flooding of the Sajó, Hernád and Bódva rivers overlapped with this catastrophe, the cause of which was the rainfall in the Low Tatras, the reservoir of these rivers in Slovakia.

Shovels and spades

The human factor also played a part in the catastrophe. The fundamentals of the problem have existed for decades and after every blow dealt by nature there is a mantra of official promises to find solutions - with scant results. The main defenses built by the state along the big rivers (Danube, Tisza, Körös rivers) generally keep the larger inundations of water at bay but the waterways that caused the most problems this year had been neglected, with no defense works. For example, the Bódva's banks are only protected by side piling - while the Sajó and the Hernád are protected only in certain stretches. 

The majority of the smaller stream beds are managed by local governments but the local authorities have neither the money nor the expertise to maintain them. The beds are clogged with debris and earth, and overgrown with trees and bushes so the flow of water is highly inefficient and the quantity of water pouring down them does not drain off.  Thus the view expressed by the intellectual circles associated with the previous government suggesting making receipt of unemployment benefits dependant upon performing public work is nothing more than making the lives of those in need even more difficult.     

It would be neither humiliating nor senseless if in Borsod County (or anywhere else), regarded as the poorest area of Hungary, benefit recipients were to take part in the constant maintenance work needed in their villages' watercourses by working on  the water draining ditches and rain water reservoirs. The water conservation agencies struggling to maintain the national line of defenses have neither the money nor the manpower for this task but could help local governments with advice.

It's already commonplace but still true that in the last few decades a lot of low lying areas and flood plains have been built on. Building permits should not have been granted to build on certain zones that have just been flooded. For example, the part of Miskolc where water reached the department stores and car showroom along the M30 motorway was farmland until just ten years ago, when it was built upon. It is also true that the high flood waters inundated parts of towns, such as the centre of Edelény, which in normal circumstances are not regarded as being at risk from flooding. 

Of course the urbanized areas taken over from the rivers are here to stay and they must be protected, but in the future closer attention must be paid to water conservancy when resettlement planning is carried out.

The principle has never been successfully applied in Hungary that settlements refrain from taking land away from rivers already squeezed in between damns that are far too narrow. The area worst hit by the present flooding, the joint catchment area of the Hernád, Sajó and Bódva rivers, would naturally be marshland; at one time only the islands of villages built on the ridges of hills could be seen here. However, the expansion of Miskolc and the construction of the motorway started off a trend of the "Budaörs type": wasteful utilization of territory to further the interests of development projects.

Men and bird

According to water conservation professionals, even the mis-application of some of the nature conservation rules can contribute to problems. In many places the Natura2000 areas were defined without proper negotiations and the construction of the hill country rain reservoirs, for example in Hegyköz, above Sátoraljaújhely, or filling up the empty reservoir of the Kemence Stream in Börzsöny, which since the water was drained off has been developed into an area for protected birds to nest in, have run into problems.  

According to Gyula Reich, the president of the department of water management and water construction works for the Hungarian Chamber of Engineers, it would be possible to construct reservoirs in 150-180 new locations to add to the existing 1,957 existing small reservoirs. "In Hungary scarcely 65 percent of the earthworks have been built to the prescribed size, yet the cost of protection would fall to a tenth if dams were built. In addition to this, the construction of the flat country emergency reservoirs, a project started by the first Orbán government, must be continued on the Great Plains. The main lesson from this is that every forint we spend on protection during a catastrophe, like at the present moment, is money down the drain money must be spent on prevention."

 "Unfortunately, it's usually the case that 48 hours after a flood has drained away decision-makers lose all interest," Gyula Reich told Heti Válasz. He added that strengthening the water conservation organs methodically built up over recent decades is essential. "One billion forints a year is allocated to maintain the 4,200 kilometers of dams: this is nonsense. 80 percent of the water conservation management's budget goes on human resources and only the remaining 20 percent can be used for buying equipment and materials. It is a wonder that the organization is able to fulfill its responsibilities in such circumstances."

The rain water reservoirs are not only suitable for holding flood waters, but also help agriculture by providing irrigation water during periods of drought. The proposed giant dams that would squeeze in little rivers  - justified by the present record water levels  - that would for example cut the centres of Edelény, Szikszó and Szendrő off from the river banks and thus destroy the parts of town that are the most pleasant on 360 days of the year, could be avoided by building reservoirs.

The conflict between nature conservation and water conservation is not an insurmountable one, since the fundamental objectives of the two are identical. The main aim of water conservationists is to hold back water, i.e. to catch as high a percentage of the water pouring down on the country's territory as possible, while nature conservationists are interested in restoring the wetland habitats that have disappeared.   

Just as Lake Tisza was artificially created by damming, and is now one of the most important bird paradises, the small reservoirs could be turned into valuable wildlife habitats if a rational compromise could be reached. The two sides could be natural allies in the fight against building on the rivers' floodplains.