(7 Oct 2010)
Batina, Croatia
1. Wide of boat on Danube river
2. Members of Croatian Waters (the national water utility company) getting off boat
3. Gordana Mislosevic passing water samples to another member of team
4. Close of shore
5. SOUNDBITE: (Croatian) Gordana Mislosevic, Croatian Waters:
"Because of the situation in Hungary, we have introduced intensified monitoring of the water and it has been decided one sample to be collected today, and from tomorrow two samples."
6. Ducks swimming on water
7. Close up water
8. SOUNDBITE: (Croatian) Gordana Mislosevic, Croatian Waters:
"You cannot notice anything with the naked eye, and we do not expect anything much to be visible with the naked eye, even if the sludge reaches here."
9. Close up water
10. Zoran Djurokovic looking at river
11. SOUNDBITE: (Croatian) Zoran Djurokovic, Director of the Croatian Waters for Drava and Danube:
"Possible contamination is expected in the next two to three days. Around Sunday we could see the peak of the contamination."
12. Wide of river with moored boat
Belgrade, Serbia
13. Wide of Zemun neighbourhood and the banks of the Danube river
14. Overview of the Danube river and an orthodox church cross in the foreground
15. Boat going upstream on the Danube
16. Shot of a small boat marina on the Danube
17. Gull on the Danube river
18. Boats on the Danube
19. Predrag Maric, the head of the Emergency Situation Sector within Serbian Interior Ministry, 2nd left, talking to journalists
20. SOUNDBITE: (Serbian) Predrag Maric, head of the Serbia's Emergency Situations department:
"We will draw our conclusions depending on the composition, as well as on the speed of movement and the concentration of the toxic matter itself, on whether the consequences for the flora and fauna of the Danube will be tragic or not. In any case, we will continue to monitor the situation by the hour."
21. Wide shot of the Danube river and the city panorama
STORYLINE
Officials from several nations along the Danube, downstream from Hungary - Croatia, Serbia and Romania - were testing the river every few hours on Thursday, hoping that the river's huge water volume would blunt the impact of the Hungarian red sludge spill.
South of Hungary, the 1,775-mile (2,850-kilometre) long Danube flows through Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Moldova before emptying into the Black Sea.
At the Croatian village of Batina, the first country after the Danube leaves Hungary, experts were taking water samples which they will repeat daily for the next week.
"Because of the situation in Hungary, we have introduced intensified monitoring of the water and it has been decided one sample to be collected today, and from tomorrow two samples," Gordana Mislosevic, from Croatian Waters, said.
Experts are expecting contamination levels to peak over the weekend.
"Possible contamination is expected in the next two to three days. Around Sunday we could see the peak of the contamination," said Zoran Djurokovic, Director of Croatian Waters for the Drava and Danube.
Further downstream, in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the head of Emergency Situations, Pedrag Maric, told journalists "there is no immediate threat to the health and security of the citizens of Serbia."
Maric also said Serbian authorities would continue to monitor the situation "by the hour" to assess whether "whether the consequences for the flora and fauna of the Danube will be tragic or not."
It had been tested earlier at a pH level of 13 and now was down under 10, and no dead fish had been spotted where the slurry was entering the Danube, they said.
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