An elderly lady standing in one of the doorways, staring at the riverbed with tears in her eyes. "My hens have all gone, only my ducklings are left, I keep them in the back, so they managed to escape".
Huge piles of mud made the road impassable, the bridge railing collapsed, and 30-40 centimetres of mud covered Széchényi Street which lies next to the riverbed. The last flood the elderly people of the village remember was in 1954, but they say it wasn't as big as this one.
The house of the Lolé family of six has been destroyed by the mud.
Villagers help to clean out the soaked belongings.
The last ten or so years have been characterised by hardly any water in the stream. “Last year it was the drought, now it’s this. More water has not flowed down in 20 years than now in 5 minutes” - said one of the inhabitants.
Children playing with the mud. The flooding was an extremely traumatic experience for everyone, especially for the children. Marika’s granddaughter, 5-year-old Laura, was rescued by her brother, who pulled the little girl out of their home through the window.
The family has lost everything but the clothes they were wearing that day and a statue of Mary. Only the pictures on the wall are still there, mud spread all over them.
Many of the people impacted have been displaced, but Marika and László were fortunate that they could move in with Marika’s brother, who lives in the same street, but because their house was a bit elevated, the water only reached the cellar.
László is comforted by one of this friends a few days after the catastrophe.
A villager inspects the reservoir that has spilled and flooded the village as a consequence of heavy rainfalls.