Although Romanian toxic spills into Danube tributataries will ultimately impact the Danube Delta, certain Romanian spills also affect Ukraine more immediately, as for example

1. the 30-Jan-2000 spill at Baia Mare of 1,000 tons of cyanide-and-heavy-metal sludge which followed the Somes and Tisza Rivers to affect Ukraine over a short stretch of the Tisza (on whose Ukrainian bank are situated the town of Chop along with five villages), and
   
   

2. the 10-Mar-2000 and 14-Mar-2000 spills at Baia Borsa, the first of which consisted of 20,000 tons of heavy metal sludge, which followed the Viseu and Tisza Rivers to affect Ukraine over a long, and later a short, stretch of the Tisza (on whose banks are situated a large number of Ukrainian towns and villages).

The three rivers which carry the toxic spills in question flow from east to west in the accompanying maps.  Not shown on the instant maps is that once within Hungary, the Tisza heads south and into Yugoslavia where it joins the Danube, which at that point has begun to flow eastward toward the Black Sea.

Each tile in the mosaic can be clicked to reveal a corresponding detailed map (after which, clicking the BACK button in the browser will return to this mosaic, and clicking BACK a second time will return to the body of the "Danube Delta Disaster" discussion).

Labels in the detailed maps are in Russian, and differ from contemporary press coverage as follows: Tisza in contemporary press coverage is represented as Tysa in the maps; Somes as Samosh toward the west and changing to Somesh farther east; Viseu (sometimes Viso) as Vysheul downstream and Vysheu upstream; Baia Borsa as Beila Borsha; Baia Mare is unchanged.  National boundaries in the detailed maps are marked by lines conisisting of what look like capital I's separated by dots.  Such national boundaries are harder to find when they follow the middle of rivers, because then they are not drawn continuous.

Each side of a tile in the mosaic covers approximately 37.5 km.

Maps linked on this page were originally at  www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/x-ussr/M35E.html and are Copyrighted � 2003 The Regents of the University of California.