Those miners, who began arriving in 2008, populate shantytowns carved into jungle along the interoceanic highway where coerced prostitution and tuberculosis thrive and the glow of welder's torches mending overworked machinery burns well into the night.
As they separate flecks of gold from the sandy, alluvial soil, the miners use mercury to bind it. Tons of the toxic metal have been dumped into rivers, contaminating fish, humans and other animals and plants.
No one knows how much gold Madre de Dios contains. But officials say more than 159 metric tons, worth more than $7 billion at current prices, have been mined in the Austria-sized region over the past decade. The region is among the planet's most biodiverse and includes indigenous tribes that shun contact with outsiders and are vulnerable to diseases.
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