A Hungarian court on Monday sentenced company officials to up to 2.5 years in prison for one of the country's worst environmental disasters that killed ten people and destroyed rivers with toxic waste.

More than 200 were also injured in October 2010 when a holding reservoir of the MAL alumina plant in the western town of Ajka burst its walls, sending 1.1 million cubic metres (38.8 million cubic feet) of sludge into nearby villages and countryside...

In an initial trial in 2016, 15 company employees [...] were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, with the court finding the disaster was caused by factors largely outside of MAL's control...

However, prosecutors successfully secured a retrial, arguing that [...] the fallout of the disaster could have been diminished if management had intervened earlier...

The verdicts are open to appeal.

Despite vast sums spent on depolluting the region, it still bears traces of the tragedy.

Hundreds of hectares of land remain sealed off and cannot be used for cultivation.