PERU, Rinconada: Glacier Gold Part 3 of 3

Located in a hostile Andean region 5,500 metres above sea level, la Rinconada is the highest gold mine in the world, and is covered by a glacier.
Despite the lack of oxygen and temperatures that fall to 20° Celsius below zero, 20,000 people live in the shantytown in la Rinconada. Their job is to dig through the ice and rock to extract the precious gold.
The residents of la Rinconada live without running water, sewers or heating in the midst of their own excrements and rubbish. Added to the deplorable sanitary situation, the widespread use of mercury to separate the gold from the rock means that la Rinconada is a time bomb threatening the ecology of the whole region.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Economics
• Health and medicine
• Minerals & mining
• Pollution
• Population
• Waste management
• Water resources

[cavaleer]

@rohndra No, it's because the leaders of Peru don't see any need to educate their people so that they don't have to do this for a living. It's not different than coal mining in West Virginia until the coal wars forced changes. It has NOTHING to do with the so-called "western world". Get off that dead horse. Independent countries can chart their course. They're not doing anything different than 17th England, Spain or France.

[rohndra]

the luxury of the western world is at the expensive of these people

[chrisdotwynn]

Wait, they are only being paid $10 a gram for pure gold? That is ridiculous! Gold is worth triple that easy!