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 10 people and blighted rivers with toxic waste.

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

The mud -- a caustic byproduct from the aluminium-making process -- also wiped out almost all life in nearby rivers, and even spread to the Danube.

In an initial trial in 2016, 15 company employees -- including the plant's former director Zoltan Bakonyi -- were cleared of criminal wrongdoing, with the court finding the disaster was caused by factors largely outside of MAL's control.

The fault lay with the designers of the reservoir and authorities responsible for carrying out checks, rather than MAL's staff, the court said at the time.

However, prosecutors successfully secured a retrial, arguing that judges had committed procedural errors and that the fallout of the disaster could have been diminished if management had intervened earlier.

In the verdicts from that retrial, a court in Gyor on Monday sentenced Bakonyi to 2.5 years for endangering the public by criminal negligence and jailed his deputy for two years.

Another eight staff members were handed suspended sentences, fines or reprimands, while five company employees were acquitted.

The guilty verdicts were appealed by both defence and prosecuting lawyers, with the latter seeking stiffer sentences for 13 of the defendants.

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.

Monday's verdict, the first time in Hungary that jail terms have been handed to company officials for criminal negligence in an environmental catastrophe, was called "historic" by the Greenpeace organisation.

But key questions about the authorities' responsibility remain unanswered, Greenpeace added in a statement.

"Only independent and efficient authorities combined with strong legislation enshrining the 'polluter pays' principle can ensure that Hungary avoids similar disasters in the future," it said.

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