Original_To:  BITNET%"BIOSPH-L@UBVM"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.biosph-l
Date:         Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:26:00 EST
Reply-To:     SMOLKO@NCSUCHE.BITNET
From:         SMOLKO@NCSUCHE.BITNET
Subject:      Deaths from Uranium Mine

Original-Sender: robbieb@gn.apc.org


Tibet Information Network / 7 Beck Rd London E8 4RE  UK
ph: (+44-81) 533 5458 / fax: (+44-81) 985 4751
TIN News Update / 11 September, 1992 / total no of pages: 2

   Tibetans Dying From Uranium Mine Waste
   ----------------------------------------

A high proportion of Tibetan villagers living near what is believed to be
a Chinese uranium mine have died after drinking water polluted by waste
from the mine, according to detailed reports from Tibetans in the
village.

In the past three years at least 35 of the approximately 500 people in
the village have died within a few hours of developing a fever, followed
by a distinctive form of diarrhoea; six of the victims died within three
days of each other.

Local doctors have said they are unable to help, and have not described
the deaths as due to an epidemic or infectious disease.  "First they get
acute thirst, then indigestion. The stool is black," said a villager
interviewed on several occasions by T.I.N.. The villager had been trained
in Tibetan medicine.

"They die after one or two days; some die after 5 days; a few survive.
There have not been deaths from other villages in the area, which are
further away from the mines", he said.

Locals say that many cattle in the area around the mine have also died
suddenly, but only after rainstorms, suggesting that they are poisoned by
a water-borne toxin. "Animals who drink water coming from the mining area
or who inhale the dust die immediately", said the Tibetan, "They seem to
have internal burns".

The evidence suggests that the rains wash lethal waste from the mine
works into the water supply, and locals say that they have been told
unofficially by some Chinese officials not to drink the water from
streams flowing from the mining area.

The village is in the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau, traditionally
known as Amdo but now administered under the Chinese province of Sichuan.
The exact location of the village and the names of the victims are being
withheld until further investigations have been completed.

The Tibetans have never been told what is being mined in their valley,
and they are not allowed to approach the works. "The whole valley is
guarded and no-one is allowed there", T.I.N. was told. But they say that
the Chinese miners wear protective clothing and work only two hour
shifts, suggesting that uranium, or another radioactive substance, is
being extracted.

Chinese engineers spent 15 years prospecting in the area for the
minerals, which were finally located in 1976. Intensive work was under
way by 1980 and the mines now spread over about 4 kilometres, with many
hills hollowed out by the works, which include both open cast and deep
mining.

"People started to become ill in 1980; at about the same time the nearby
forest started to dry up," said the informant. "Before it was very green
but now it is much harder to get plants to grow."

The villagers complained on several occasions to the Government,
including sending local leaders with a petitions to Beijing on three
occasions, but without any result.

"We approached the Government to ask for the mining to be stopped after
the cattle and the people were affected. The Chinese said that we had no
right to ask for this as the place did not belong to us. It is a very
important place and you have no rights here, they told us. There are
several party members in the village, all of them Tibetans, and they went
with the petition to Beijing, but nothing was done about it".

In 1984 a Tibetan official in the mining team came to the villagers and
told them that the mineral which was being extracted was gold, and was
not poisonous. Villagers say that he told them it was quite safe to drink
the water. "We asked him to drink some of the water with us, but he
wouldn't", the Tibetan said.

"I myself think that it is something carried in the water, so that when
it rains it is washed down from the mine workings to the village. We can
draw water from a well, but some people use the stream. The Chinese check
the water with metres every week; we don't know why or what they find
out," said the villager. "They don't care at all about Amdo people; they
treat us like animals."

In 1990 the Chinese government announced that more than 200 uranium
deposits had been discovered in its southern and western regions,
according to the official newspaper "China Daily" on 28th May.

A Chinese delegate to a conference organised by the International Atomic
Energy Agency told the meeting that uranium deposits had been found in
Western Yunnan, which lies to the south of Amdo, as well as in some other
areas of China.

He added that the deposits would be enough for China's short term needs,
but said they were "inadequate for a long-term development programme".
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