Breitbart reports: "Chinese Copper Mine Causes Giant Acid Spill in Zambia: Major River ‘Totally Dead’." From the article:
On February 18, a tailings dam at the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia mine collapsed, resulting in a worst-case calamity: 50 million liters of toxic slurry poured into a stream that connects to the vital Kafue River. This river provides water for plants, fish, animals, and about 12 million human inhabitants, including residents of the national capital, Lusaka. In fact, about 60% of Zambia’s population lives in the Kafue River basin.
Environmental activists called the toxic spill an “environmental disaster of catastrophic consequences” and pronounced the 930-mile-long Kafue River “totally dead.”
Huge numbers of dead fish began washing up on the river banks, wiping out the local fishing industry. Crops watered by the river withered and died. The Zambian military used planes and speedboats to dump hundreds of tons of lime into the river to neutralize the acid waste.
Adding insult to injury — in fact, adding both insult and injury — another Chinese mine suffered a smaller acid waste leak a few days later. A mine worker was killed at this second mine after falling into the acid. Local officials accused the Chinese mine owners of first attempting to conceal the smaller leak and then defying government orders to halt operations. Two managers from the second mine have been placed under arrest.
Don't ignore the contribution of the African workers at those mines to the disasters.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to gauge in this instance because Chinese companies import a lot of their own people to Africa to do a lot of the skilled and semi-skilled work, and the article did not say why the tailings dam collapsed. But, yes, I would agree that many African countries have done a poor job of building and maintaining infrastructure.
DeleteA thousand mile river . . . dead.
ReplyDeleteAnd the leftist MSM hasn't been reporting on it. I guess it's okay when Communists do it.
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