The villages of King-king and Kematu may not register with people living in the comfort of their air-conditioned homes.
In these two villages, the walls are the slabs
of hardened rock beneath the earth which small scale miners are
literally tearing down. The vegetation above the surface is the ‘garden’ they are mowing down to use whatever trees there are left for timber.
In these two villages, more than 400 kilometers
apart, live more than 4,000 people who have made mining a rewarding but
dangerous livelihood.
These people are not only exposed to the elements, they also put their lives on the line in the mines every day.
In 2011 more than a dozen of small scale miners
died in a mine collapse in Pantukan, Compostela Valley where the
King-king village gold rush is located.
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