Indonesian miners risk lives in modern-day gold rush

Aside from the environmental devastation, the workers there and at many similar sites across Indonesia are risking their health and poisoning communities by illegally using mercury to extract gold...................

The situation has been described as a "health timebomb" by Professor Marcello Veiga, an expert in the use of mercury in small-scale gold mining at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
"They will die by the thousands," he said.
Jakarta hopes that a landmark UN convention, signed this week in Japan aimed at reining in the use of mercury, will limit supplies of the metal for miners in Indonesia and help reduce the deadly practice.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131019/indonesian-miners-risk-lives-modern-day-gold-rush