In the meantime, farmland at the base of nearby Hsin Gaung Mountain is being destroyed and water sources are getting polluted. “The Gaung Tone stream, which flows from the mountain through Mine Naung and had provided water for drinking and growing crops, now runs red and is full of silt, former village administrator Soe Myint told RFA’s Myanmar Service,” the multimedia story reads.
Work conditions are not safe either. Labourers, some of them as young as 14-years-old, work knee-deep in mud as a water suction pump sifts through the surrounding sand, dirt, and gravel for gold. Sometimes, columns of rock collapse. Women handle mercury with little protection.
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