NESTLED in a former cocoa-farming region in southwestern Ghana, the town
of Prestea boasts more than 150 small-scale gold mines in the backyards
of abandoned farms. The town, with a population of about 35,000, also
sits covered in permanent smog—a red dust that stains white goats
crimson. It is the result of lethal mercury, on which miners all over
Ghana rely to refine their gold. In Prestea, where gravediggers are in
greater supply than doctors, death from mercury poisoning is routine.
http://www.economist.com/node/21586971
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