"He is better than me, stay up left only three months." Wu Chun muttered. Between words, her eyelids, lips, left hand and left leg, often uncontrollable tremors.
Living in this family home like everyone else, Wu Chun and her husband had to dedicate their youth to the Guizhou mercury mine not far away. After 1997, the line in the mercury mine engaged in smelting work, her husband, died of acute nasopharyngeal cancer in just three months. The culprit is the smelting process produces large amounts of mercury vapor.
Seven years later, Wu Yangchun began to further her husband's footsteps. In the past dry beneficiation, Wu Yangchun's respiratory organs have been free of mercury vapor direct stimulation. But it's hard to say whether that was a blessing or an unfortunate one, because it meant the mercury process of her cutting would have dragged on even longer.
Wu Chun's financial reporter saw that the medical certificate issued by the Guizhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (hereinafter referred to as the Guizhou CDC), as determined by the center, screams more than occupational chronic mercury poisoning.
September 10, 2007 to determine the medical certificate reads: "1958 to 19?83 years engaged in dealing with headaches, insomnia, sleeplessness, restlessness, weakness of the limbs, loose teeth, bleeding gums, tremor, movement of the poor, coarse upper limb tremor."
A year later, Wu Yangchun's condition worsened, mercury toxins began to erode the lungs, her coughing, coughing up phlegm, chest tightness, chest pain, shortness of breath, dyspnea and other symptoms. The Guizhou Provincial Disease Diagnostic Center in 2007 identified eight disabilities "," six disabilities.
Now, the constant tremor of the limbs of Wu Chunfeng action is very slow. Just ten stairs took her several minutes to realize in the past. Due to severe bleeding gums, Wu Yangchun, every day after the meal is cooked, add water to boil, and get the feeling of rotten to'll.
"Sometimes eat half, blood accumulates in the mouth." Told reporters that she financial.
Wu Yangchun home not only destroy families. She revealed that this building alone, where she lived for the past two or three years, because of mercury poisoning 15 people.
It is estimated that in China's oldest and once largest mercury mine in the Wanshan Special Administrative Region, with a total population of 60,000, at least 200 people have shown varying degrees of symptoms of mercury poisoning by the local health department. That doesn't include potential patients who have died and aren't showing symptoms.
Behind the "Mercury" halo
Wanshan District was once called China's "Mercury" is no exaggeration.
As early as in the Tang and Song dynasties, this place was rich in cinnabar (mercury-containing minerals), mercury (commonly known as mercury) is famous. Mercury reserves about Asia's first, the world's second peak annual production once accounted for 70% of the country.
In the early 1950s, the state established a large-scale mining enterprise directly under the central mercury mine in Guizhou. The next 30 years, Guizhou mercury mine **** produced about 3 million tons of metallic mercury, paid taxes of 15 billion yuan RMB 1.24 billion yuan of industrial output value equivalent to the present.
Toward the end of the 1980s, the trend of resource depletion of mercury mines in Guizhou. By the end of 2000, Guizhou mercury mine accumulated losses of nearly 100 million yuan, liabilities up to 157 million yuan, serious insolvency situation.
May 2002, mining nearly 600 years of Guizhou mercury mine to implement the policy of closure and bankruptcy. Overnight, my nearly 10,000 miners and more than 60,000 residents of DC suddenly realized that there was a halo behind the heavy environmental liabilities left behind.
Wanshan Special Administrative Region Environmental Protection Bureau Director Liu Ping in an interview with reporters, "financial" reporters, Wanshan mercury pollution and environmental damage, in fact, a very serious stage. "
Mines, forests, groundwater, or the entire geology of the last years bring disastrous consequences. Wanshan District Environmental Protection Bureau Office Director Tianhong Zhang, digging the foundation of basically 100-150 meters of underground tunnels hollowed out following the five layers of spiderweb-like interlocking equivalent standard trenches to 970 kilometers, "the most serious digging 7 the thinnest place is only 7 meters to 8 meters, relying on a handful of large columns to support. "
"It can be said that the town of Wan is more like a huge hollowing out area, shaky siege." Tianhong Zhang.
Of course, more worried about him, Wanshan serious mercury pollution.
Wanshan mercury mine from glory to decline of the short cycle of 45 years, the total emissions of mercury-containing waste gas 2.02 billion cubic meters, 4260000 cubic meters of industrial residue, 51.92 million tons of wastewater. The air exceeded the standard by as much as 5,449 times, and the wastewater and slag also exceeded 236 times and 214.5 times.
As a direct result of the discharge of untreated, high total metal mercury in the environment. Liu leveled estimates of at least 3.5 million tons, almost one-tenth of the current annual global mercury emissions.
Guizhou Province, Zunyi Medical College, Guizhou Institute of Environmental Science, Guizhou Labor Health Agency and other agencies in Guizhou mercury mine bankruptcy, did a monitoring survey found that the mercury content in the mine air 0.0053mg / cubic meter counted more than 1.67 times; drinking water mercury content of the highest more than 36 times.
Since mercury is liquid and appears at ambient temperatures, and has a low melting point, it can easily contaminate soil after settling on the surface by evaporation. Therefore, when my main crops are contaminated with varying degrees of mercury, including cabbage mercury content exceeded the standard by nearly 100 times, and mercury's main detection of the least amount of corn crops, but also more than 10 times.
Associate professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Environment and Engineering, Zheng Jinping, told "Finance and Economics" reporter that although mercury mines emit inorganic mercury from the human body's absorption rate is not high. Inorganic mercury does not have much effect on the human body can easily acidify water conditions and transformed into highly toxic methylmercury (MeHg), rice and vegetable production in the mercury area, the phenomenon of MeHg enrichment.
Methylmercury, the direct culprit that led to the outbreak of Minamata disease (Minamata disease) in the year. This substance is not only easily absorbed by the human body, but also accumulates through the food chain in concentrations that gradually become larger, thus posing a great risk to human health.
In 2004, Guizhou Province, a study of occupational disease prevention and control, alarming health hazards of mercury on the human body conducted a survey. The government did not consume contaminated water as well as vegetables, rice restrictions, therefore, not directly involved in this work, the prevalence of mercury mercury poisoning in urban and rural residents 4.18%, ranking the highest level, the incidence of various stone disease, the incidence of different types of cancer is still very high.
Until today, the "Finance" reporter visited the Huanzhen farmers' market and found that almost 90 percent of the produce sold on the market, except for a very small amount produced from local vegetables, relies on imports from other provinces. "Don't drink the local water, don't eat the local food" has become a "normal" life in the region.