“Soldiers worked heroically”

Besides the locals and the staff of disaster prevention and water authorities, since Wednesday 5 pm, the troops of the Hungarian Defence Forces have also been participating in flood protection/response operations in Bõny, Gyõr-Moson-Sopron county. Due to the flooding Cuhai-Bakony-ér (stream), on Wednesday the cabinet’s coordination committee issued flood alert and declared a state of emergency in the region of Bõny and two other villages, Rétalap and Mezõörs. The mayor of Bõny asked for the help of the Hungarian Defence Forces, among others. The 60 soldiers of the HDF 12th Arrabona Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment of Gyõr arrived late in the afternoon and immediately started fortifying the dams.

Defence Minister Csaba Hende also visited the troops Thursday morning, and he was informed about the emerging situation by mayor László Muraközi and Emil Janák, the water authority’s expert in charge of flood protection in the region.

After visiting the troops and inspecting their work around the village, the minister held a press conference where he said that the selected corps of the Hungarian Defence Forces are working in many places in the country. Just like in Bõny, soldiers are present at the most dangerous points and they carry out the most difficult tasks in flood protection.

– The Hungarian soldier always performs his duty, wherever there is a problem he goes there and helps the people in need – said Csaba Hende, who also told the press that according to information he had received from the professionals, in the previous 12 hours the soldiers had been working heroically and the locals were also very supportive.

The leader of the defence ministry emphasised: the people living in these villages had every reason to be afraid of the flood caused by heavy rainfall in recent days, because two weeks ago the Cuhai-Bakony-ér also flooded the village, causing considerable damage. The teams participating in flood protection are concentrating on how to minimalise damage and prevent a state of emergency that can be even worse than the flooding two weeks ago.

– Therefore the Coordination Committee declared a state of emergency, which enables us to take every necessary measure and cover the costs of protection – the pointed out defence minister.

Csaba Hende told honvedelem.hu that the selected corps of the Hungarian Defence Forces are participating in flood prevention in other areas as well, for example in the village of Sásd, Baranya county, and in several villages in North Eastern Hungary, where the majority of the troops are from the ’István Bocskai’ Infantry Brigade of Debrecen but they have also involved teams from other corps, too: the personnel of the Szolnok Helicopter Base are also on standby and are ready to assist, if needed. The Hungarian Defence Forces are participating in flood protection with more than a hundred technical equipments – the minister underlined.

Lt.Col. (eng.) Ferenc Kovács, the acting commander of the Gyõr anti-aircraft missile regiment added: soldiers are working in 12-hour rotations at the dams. New troops would arrive soon to replace those who started the night before, and continue the work.

Emil Janák from the water authority told us that besides the soldiers, there are 70 firefighters and 30 employees from the water authority, that is a total of 160 people participating in flood protection. They are assisted by a large number of locals. At the border of the village – where the situation is the most dangerous – there are no protection lines so they have found a simple technical solution to stop the water from flowing across the village, and prevent any further damage. They have concentrated their forces in this area because the recently built new section has to be protected all the time in order to prevent the temporary dams from collapsing.

Mayor László Muraközi, the chairman of the local flood protection committee said: in a few weeks, it is the second time the stream has flooded the village. The first wave of flooding reached the region on May 17, several families had to be dislocated. A supporting wall in one of the houses collapsed, but fortunately, the young couple and their four children had already left their home. In the second wave of flooding, another four families had to leave their homes, it cannot even be predicted when they can move back because the reports of the weather service say it will be raining again this week in this region and in the catchment area of the Cuhai-Bakony-ér. The mayor added: although he does not remember a similar flooding, older people living in the village said the last time there was such a heavy flooding in Bõny was in the 1940s. The 1963 flood, which caused panic in the village, was a lot less severe than the present one.