Arsenic refinery leaves a deadly legacy
Print Edition
Arsenic refining has wreaked havoc in central Hunan Province’s Shimen County, causing at least 500 mine workers to die from cancer, according to the Oriental Morning Post.
Once, villagers lived just by growing rice. But they gave up their farmland after the discovery of Asia’s biggest deposits of realgar and a mine and refinery opened in 1950.
The ore brought great fortune to the villagers, but they didn’t realize they were paying ultimate price until they found an increasing number of people dying of cancer.
Nearly 400 mine workers were recorded as dying from various cancers by 2001, when the plant went bankrupt, said Zhao Guangming, a doctor at the plant.
But the plant survived after an injection of private funds. In the past decade, Zhao recorded an average annual death toll of 10 people. “In one year, 30 people died, a historic high,” he said.
Realgar is an arsenic sulfide mineral often used to make fireworks. Carcinogenic arsenic can be obtained by burning and smelting realgar. In 1956, the plant started to produce arsenic.
“We really lacked safety awareness at that time,” said 74-year-old Sheng Fangxun, who got a job at the plant in 1958.
Workers had to wear masks but arsenic ash still got into their noses and mouths. Some even took off their shirts when carrying loads of ore and realgar powder mixed with their sweat.
Zhao became a plant doctor in 1977. But he found that workers often suffered diarrhea, abdominal pain and skin irritation.
There were similar problems in Heshan Village, about 100 meters from the mine.
The newspaper said obtaining 20 grams of arsenic would generate 80 grams of waste which was dumped into a river which ran through Heshan downstream. Toxic ash was also blown to the village.
Medical documents show 286 of the 700 villagers have been diagnosed with arsenic poisoning.
“I smell firecrackers when I open the door in the morning. It’s so nose-irritating,” said 76-year-old Gong Zhaoshu.
She said villagers used to drink water from the river, washed clothes in it and took children to bathe there every day though they saw the river was dyed red.
But once they found their neighbors getting sick they began to stay away.
It was too late to save their crops, however. The irrigated rice fields were killed off, together with insects.
The severe pollution forced the plant to stop arsenic production in 1978. Other by-products of realgar, sulfuric acid and phosphatic fertilizer, took its place.
However, the discharge of toxic waste didn’t end. The unprocessed waste “severely polluted” 9 square kilometers around the mine, official documents showed.
A research team from the Peking University’s Health Science Center tested the environment in the 1990s.
In Heshan, they found almost 300 milligrams of arsenic in 1 kilogram of soil while the national limit was 30 milligrams.
The plant was finally shut down in 2011 and a fight to combat pollution, approved by the State Council, was launched in October 2012. Nearly 8,000 hectares of farmland were about to be restored.
However, local people were not taken good care of, the newspaper said. The plant refused to compensate workers who were diagnosed with arsenic poisoning after 2001.
Villagers were also neglected, the newspaper said, with many just waiting to die because the medical insurance system didn’t include arsenic poisoning and didn’t cover their medical bills.
The only relief was from the county government. It ruled that chronic arsenic poisoning patients could get 1,000 yuan and cancer victims 10,000 yuan.
Chen Deqing, 62, was born near the mine. Her parents, children and daughter-in-law all worked there. In a medical test last year, five of her family members were found to be poisoned by arsenic, and she was diagnosed with skin cancer.
“I am waiting for death. So many people have died,” Chen said.
A young man who refused to disclose his name said he was the only one in the village who was qualified to be a soldier in 1995. Others all failed because of “body problems.”
Gong Zhaoshu, a government official in Heshan, said: “We have grown old. It doesn’t matter if we die. But how about our next generation?”
The plant buildings have been pulled down and pits that used to be piled with toxic waste covered with stones to prevent arsenic compound being washed out by rainfall.
Nearby the pits there is a burial site, the tombs of mine workers, Zhao said. Some left their hometowns to support the nation’s economic growth, and ended their lives there.
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