South-east Asia’s rivers and people at risk due to toxic mines: Report

For most of her life, 59-year-old farmer Tip Kamlue has irrigated her fields in northern Thailand with water from the Kok River, which flows down from neighbouring Myanmar before joining the Mekong River that cuts through Southeast Asia.

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But since April, after the authorities warned residents to stop using the Kok’s water because of concerns over contamination, Ms Tip has been using groundwater to grow pumpkins, garlic, sweet corn and okra.

“It’s like half of me has died,’ she said, standing by her fields in Tha Ton sub-district and looking out at the river that she is now forced to shun.

Across mainland Southeast Asia, more than 2,400 mines - many of them illegal and unregulated - could be releasing deadly chemicals such as cyanide and mercury into river water, according to research from the US-based Stimson Center think-tank released on Nov 24.

“The scale is something that’s striking to me,” said Mr Brian Eyler, a senior fellow at Stimson, pointing to scores of tributaries of major rivers, such as the Mekong, the Salween and the Irrawaddy, that are probably highly contaminated.

The Stimson report marks the first comprehensive study of potentially polluting mines in mainland Southeast Asia.

Researchers analysed satellite imagery to identify mining activity, including 366 alluvial mining sites, 359 heap leach sites and 77 rare earth mines draining into the Mekong basin.

Mostalluvial mining sites are gold mines, though some also extract tin and silver. Heap leach mining sites include those for gold, nickel, copper and manganese extraction.