Mines. You cant see it but these children have poison in their blood the director of the Primary School in center they pasco in peru says learning and concentration difficulties are usually the 1st sign to this one is when they sneeze the blood often comes out of their noses. You know cool they struggle to Pay Attention for longer stretches of time so its not as if im sure its due to the lead in their blood thats on. The school is right next to a gigantic open cast mine. The crater dominates the town of saturday possible. The Global Economy is hungry for Raw Materials. But this comes at a high cost 1. 00 that many south americans have to pay. Some even with their lives. Saturday pasco is a town in the heart of the peruvian andes in peru and the sight of a huge open cast mine extracting zinc silver and lead for global markets. The mine is now owned by a swiss commodities giant Glencore Glencore recently paid several 100000000. 00 for it but the people who live here pay an even higher price so today pasco lies in an altitude of 4300 meters locals absorb heavy metals into their bloodstream through the tap water. In the senate comes time to lead makes us tying it to that especially if its children whether. Its not my stomach hurts my head aches a visiting a list if you like when i ask my children to solve a problem if they could take it tell it. They come from shop you know youre looking. Next door as a Health Center with a poster that reads led campaign. Everyone can get tested for heavy metals theyre. Measuring elevated values for all heavy metals lead cadmium potassium and mercury all residents have levels that clearly exceed the World Health Organizations limits. Giving. Looked in. Peruvian journalists have documented the worst cases. Children confined to wheelchairs because their lead levels are more times to hide. Cars from operation. Dr fernando or sorries has researched heavy metal exposure his study revealed alarming results. In my made up of the think in policy on for sept i mean this is the us i found the most heavy metals in children and pregnant women. Will tell us what it means but we feel if you think the children have lead in their blood which means they have problems with Nervous System Development from a young age and reduced i. Q. Is as they get older. And that half is from the littlest several youll. Have also discovered levels of arsenic which is carcinogenic these i mean if you not feel equal if you havent why you would be a wealth and actually thats not just my opinion the World Health Organization says that to. Us and that. These diseases are directly linked to peruse worthless exploitation of Natural Resources for export. The whole country is in its grip. Were on our way through a barren landscape to the highest town in the world. You can smell the garbage long before you even reach. Hundreds of tons of waste surround the town in a ring several kilometers deep. The locals say the state has little power in this town of 50000 people perched 5100 meters up in the andes. If you are originally from this inhospitable region. They came to this place to find gold. There is more gold here than anywhere else. But entire families are in thrall to gold fever sifting through the waste from the mines to find tiny fragments of gold. None of the mines or official. Everyone is in or for themselves. Nobody has a permit. Not even the gold diggers who have driven their miles long shafts into the mountain. 10 years ago the gold boom attracted thousands of impoverished peruvian solving kanada. When fortunato 2 k. 1st arrived just a few 100 people were living in the town where nighttime temperatures can drop to minus 20 degrees celsius. Someone told me back then that a lot in kanada had a future its hard but ive stayed ive been here almost 24 years now. The Mining Companies have complete power if you dont play by their rules you get fired still fortunato held out soon hell have earned enough to leave lauding kanada for good but working in the shops has left its mark on the 59 year old. Theres particulate matter everywhere in the mines. Many colleagues die of pneumonia or from gas poisoning caused by one of the underground explosions us. Once a month or 2 not a sells his gold to a trader its usually worth about a 1000 europes thats a pretty good income for peru. Here in the wild west people can at least scrape a living but elsewhere they are paying for raw material exports with their lives. A burst dam in bruma denio in brazil in early 2019 had fatal consequences. Bali was the Mining Company responsible for the disaster. Rescue workers dug desperately through the mud and sludge to find survivors among the 300 people reported missing. More often than not they only found bodies. Some had even been buried in a boss. Who helped us so something blue shimmering he dug with his hands and found the tire of the bus. It was noon when the dam of the iron ore mine collapsed without warning. An employee recorded this video where he says all workers were sitting at the lunch table. To to the mudslides and gold hundreds of workers and residents below the reservoir. Brown red possibly toxic mud flooded the valley. The Emergency Services saved one young couple in the nick of time. This woman also escaped from the ruins but. It took just one hour to devastate the entire valley. And. Distraught relatives gathered at an Emergency Response center many received trauma counseling. Most had to learn that their brothers fathers or uncles were still missing so they waited even as hope of finding survivors way. And. You can arrange you dont you well stay here until we find out what happened mosul song engine only one moment effaced is whats happened is terrible this is negligence this in my eyes my face in the shit i see. The morning after the disaster warning sirens sounded again d people were scared a 2nd mudslide was imminent and fled to higher ground. As i live and we heard the sirens at 530 thats when we came here with our i. D. s since then weve been waiting and still have no information that that means. The police blocked off a bridge and the main road of reminding the moment nobody knew exactly what was going on but it was gradually becoming clear that the Mining Company of ali could no longer guarantee bruma deano was safe says law bahais account though it would be even worse if there were more casualties and thats why there sealing off the area. The rescuers had to stop their work because of concerns that another dam above could collapse. There the delay angered the families desperately waiting for news of their loved ones. Every moment was precious there. Was nothing but ive had no information about my husband its been 2 days now theres a snow day 8 hours later they finally received the all clear signal for the 2nd dam the rescue work could continue. Meanwhile the people of roma denio were trying to come to terms with the sheer scale of the disaster. On a ritas 28 year old nephew was in the canteen when the mudslide hit home. He went to work and never came back but im the one to know hes lying and. Its incredibly sad to see you my yes. People prayed for the missing at the Church Next Door but 4 days after the disaster sorrow was turning to anger at mine operator of ali. This was no accident it was a crime. No amount of financial compensation will bring our friends back to conspire god and vali is now under investigation by brazils Justice Department which has frozen over 2000000000 euros of the companys assets. And so this isnt what the villages this is a human tragedy because it involves such a large number of victims range youve each of us. Environmental activists protesting outside the company headquarters. They say the commodities giant invested too little in safety and oversight. Is one of the worlds biggest iron ore exporters. Many people have accused the company of deliberately flirting with disaster in order to be able to meet the increased Global Demand for iron ore. Body doesnt own no land the company only has licenses to mine there and if they cant even do that without making mistakes contaminating rivers and killing people. In bali is now facing probably the biggest crisis since it was founded 77 years ago. He used to be state owned. The growth of the Global Demand for iron ore led to a rapid expansion in the 1970 s. And even operates its own fleet of ships. Vala grew to be so powerful during the Brazilian Military dictatorship it was privatized in the 1990 s. But the state is still the Majority Shareholder of. The 2009 economic crisis hit volley hard the company which is dependent on Global Demand had to layoff many workers. But the past few years have seen a marked turnaround valet was able to cash in on increased demand for iron ore in china and europe and has become a heavyweight in the brazilian stock index. The company has massively expanded its mining activities and generates billions in profits then in november 2015 a dam belonging to one of alis subsidiaries collapsed 1000 people were killed and volleys operations came under increasing scrutiny is that on the. Home with us where they want us and has a so often the case and brazil regulations and controls may be moving in the right direction but according to the law there should have been 3 times as many inspectors on the disaster area to effectively inspect the reservoirs as there actually were even skellies up to this was thought so you can hardly say the result really takes environmental regulation seriously is that just just what the authorities had said 3 days before the accident was that these years although its laws are right it no government neither left nor right as actually implemented in france will be in decision will be just get the g. D. Sent with public on. After the bruma deano tragedy the authorities suspected that a brazilian subsidiary of germanys took may have been partly to blame and arrested 2 of its employees. Documents show that the 2 men had certified the dam as safe just a few months earlier and the investigators wanted to know why. But the dam may have burst due to factors that had only come into play after the inspection. In december 20. 8th and see issued the volley group with a permit classifying the dam as a level 4 in other words medium safety risk. But the minutes of an earlier Environmental Commission show that the risk level had previously been a 6 heightened risk. Mental agency also approved an expansion of mining activity this was significant because it also involved work around the dam. Media reports cited this as an express permit it was issued just a few weeks before the accident and for saw a 70 percent increase in production. And environmental activists from the disaster area accuses the mine operator of negligence. Here. The valley group must have noticed that something in the dam was out of whack because of its illegal activities and then a month before the accident tried to get retrospective approval. Environmental groups are calling for more rigorous state oversight was each of them said i knew best and shut the had all we can see theres less oversight because the environmental authorities have been massively on the cuss is almost by the lase minute because skill space is implement the most even with the laws that clear the control of thor if hes to not have the resources to enforce them. Its. Hardly any checks are carried out. Because companies are accessing enormous pressure to prevent them. The means to me to change them up is still in the offing this is going to bring to me the van i agree with has been making donations to politicians for a long time going to be we started coming but i. Thought i was the old anger about this has been rising in bruma denio where they are also aware this wasnt the 1st mining disaster. On a rita the aunt of the 28 year old who died there is scathing about the lack of oversight because. Then the company knew that wasnt was her tight i should have fixed it but they only think about the profit of not about us. Yeah. Meanwhile locals are left facing the Environmental Impact reddish brown tailing slurry has contaminated the water. We used to use this river but now there is no river anymore its finished the. Locals like the tour who rely on tourism are worried about making ends meet it will take months before the whole area is decontaminated. Its a disaster with both human and environmental dimensions a lot of questions still havent been answered especially about lax oversight and whether it was tolerated to increase profit margins. Back instead of a possible peru. Experts say a fine layer of toxic particles has settled over these mountains. They come from a nearby metal smelting plant. Chimney on the smelter now releases fewer sulphur dioxide lead and arsenic fumes into the air than it used to. Just a few years ago it was still running at full blast. But at the sit at home it never bothered us we never left oh yeah anyway so we thought everywhere looked like this it does. It at. The consequences of the air pollution still haunt the residents many of whom suffer from chronic diseases blood lead levels are 4 times higher than the w h os upper limits pablo has serious neurological complaints but he still supports your londa and her fight for better Environmental Standards few. Experts they called us never used. To but that never bothered me because people like you londa also supported. Your loan the community. The Catholic Church and International Organizations helped us to get the ruling of the state to finally recognize the poisoning that affects us as well as our diseases. To continue as you get the name of what we listen to it and. Thats why operations in the law old royal smelter have been scaled back although the complex hasnt been shut down completely and continues to contaminate the area where. Heavy metals yolanda says the smelters legacy will be felt for years to come shes meeting Constantine Bittner who works for the german n. G. O. S adie or he spent years tracking the way German Companies continue to import Raw Materials from peru in spite of environmental problems. When it comes to Raw Materials germany is very dependent on peru much on imports yet to them ports a lot of Raw Materials especially copper lead silver or gold mallette dinner. And it would have a huge problem if the peruvian supply chain were to break down. From people mistreating them concerted efforts to expose the human rights abuses in terms of pollution caused by the supply chain a rare. Mention of ice to the basin addicts and so almost there are more efforts to push things in the other direction. People writing that things are pretty good just highlighting a couple of sustainable projects like that but when you visit places like this things look a bit different than just a few minutes on. The future of the smelter is a sensitive issue in la jolla one that even divides families. Some want more operations to create jobs others take a different view. Disgusting and. We need to find a balance when this field goes the smelting complex needs better filters to reduce contamination means antoninus i dont see that in just one light oh yes i will they can but my main concern is the health of my children be clear i even argue with my husband about this and that 100 i mean the other boats work in the mining industry. I expect the mine operators to act more responsibly. One person in la jolla whos been on the side of the victim since the very beginning is Cardinal Pedro about 80 who also comes from a mining region. For years he has witnessed the many deaths caused by the ruthless exploitation of mineral resources. And a listen most think that i mean india is thank god that is she in the church is not against my leverage you know this but we are against irresponsible market but he said 6 that he does for the peruvian state allows Foreign Companies to basically earn their weight in gold here while at the same time causing such regrettable consequences for the peruvian people and the environment. But living at altitudes as high as perils and days already poses health risks especially for the dreamers and schemers unloading kanada. A team of french scientists in 2019 set out to find out how the backbreaking labor here at 5100 meters altitude is affecting the miners bodies. They took blood samples from the gold miners to measure the number of red blood cells the blood cells that transport oxygen. There is less oxygen in the thin air up here than at sea level. The scientists wanted to find out how people had adapted to these extreme conditions. Which is a normal person that the level at sea level its about 40 percent here we measured a lot of people above 80 percent which is a huge amount of red blood cells in the blog and this helps them to bring much more oxygen to the organs for instance to get to the brain to meso. The results indicated the miners bodies had adapted to the altitude their blood was then or the normal and stress tests revealed their hearts were working at a maximum capacity. The study was also intended to help People Living at sea level. So learning how these people here. Can manage to leave weve so few oxygen. To think how to manage people patients having respiratory disease and also suffering from my pox. Im only able to deal with such low levels of oxygen with the help of coca leaves. The leaves soul is about one euro 20 without them i wouldnt be able to do anything at 5100 meters. You can either prepare them as tea or even better chew them. A gold digger fortunato shows me how to do it even after all these years he still feels the need to chew coca leaves as do most of the miners here. This seems like a ghost town to me but eric ramos chooses to spend his university became here laboring to extract the coveted p