The Hungarian authorities have fired two of their top weather experts over a wrong weather forecast that sparked a political uproar in the country.
To celebrate St Stephen’s Day, a national holiday, “Europe’s biggest fireworks display” was organized on Saturday evening, The BBC reported on Tuesday.
However, the government postponed the event seven hours before the start of the program citing extreme weather warnings.
The weather, however, remained calm which led to the sackings of the head, Kornelia Radics, and deputy head, Gyula Horvath, of the country’s National Meteorological Service.
Around 40,000 fireworks were ready to launch the display at 240 points along a 5km stretch of the Danube River in central Budapest. More than 2 million people usually watch the display.
The government postponed the event for a week due to extreme weather warnings.
But the rain predicted by the meteorological department changed its direction and drenched parts of eastern Hungary instead of its capital city.
The National Meteorological Service on Sunday posted a public apology on its Facebook page. But it was too late.
Laszlo Palkovics, innovation minister of Hungary, on Monday sacked the NMS chief and deputy chief with immediate effect.
Reaction in Hungary has been mixed following the incident.
Nearly 100,000 people had signed a petition to cancel the fireworks at a time of war in neighbouring Ukraine.
However, the government supporters became furious as they hoped the display would go ahead as per the schedule.
