Chinese villagers dying from chemical factory's illegal pollution

Jane Macartney in Shuangqiao village
The residents of Shuangqiao village say that their homes are now nothing but places in which to wait for death.
In the paddy fields surrounding this small community in Hunan province, southern China, the rice is neglected and strewn with weeds. The vegetable plots stand empty, stripped of the green beans and cabbages that were grown as cash crops.
Underfoot, the earth has been poisoned to a depth of 20cm (8in). The water in the wells is undrinkable.
Tragedies like this — the legacy of China’s rush to get rich — are all too common. Yesterday more than 600 children in Shaanxi province were found to be suffering from lead poisoning caused by a nearby lead and zinc smelter.
The plight of Shuangqiao, however, where three people have died and 509 are sick from poisoning by the heavy metals cadmium and indium, produced by a nearby factory, has drawn widespread attention since residents took to the internet to air their grievances.
“We wouldn’t be here today if the Government had paid attention to us in 2006 when we first told them the factory in our village was spreading pollution,” said one villager, who gave his name only as Li, for fear of official retribution. “Now it’s the responsibility of the factory and the Government that ignored us to help us.”
The Xianghe Chemical factory now stands shuttered and closed. Angry villagers have scratched away its name at the gate and scrawled in white paint the words: “Give us back our green hills, our clean water, our fresh air. Give us justice. We want to live.”
The Government of Hunan province — among the world’s most important producers of heavy metals and one of the most polluted regions of China — has begun to take seriously the threat from rivers so filthy that the drinking water for tens of millions could be toxic.
The mayors of eight cities, including the man responsible for Shuangqiao’s 7,000 people, have signed a pledge to the provincial capital to clean up their act, or assume personal accountability that could cut short their careers.
For some, however, it is too late. Ouyang Guoping had to watch his elder brother waste away after he fell ill while processing toxic ore for the Xianghe factory. He died on July 18. At least two other villagers have died this year of chronic illnesses.
Mr Ouyang’s body is wasted and health checks have found high levels of cadmium in his blood. His wife is in hospital. “I have little hope. I know that her illness is incurable.”
Officials say that pollution reaches a radius of about 500m (1,640ft) around Xianghe factory. But evidence points to a more serious situation.
Waste water and earth from the processing of the heavy metals have been dumped into a narrow valley at the back of the plant. The stream runs into a river 500m away that feeds into the main Xiang River, which provides drinking water for 20 million people.
The factory was supposed to produce the feed additive zinc sulphate. Instead, it illegally processed ore from zinc production to extract cadmium and rare indium, a key material in liquid crystal display screens and solar panels.
The price of indium soared from less than $600 (£360) a kilogram in 2003 to $1,000 by 2006. China now meets 30 per cent of world demand and at its peak the Xianghe factory produced 300kg of indium a month.
Former workers say that everyone knew what was going on but that the Government turned a blind eye. Zhou Haiming, 37, a former factory employee, said that he should probably be in hospital but someone had to support the family. His parents, his wife and his 7-year-old son are all ill.
“We tried to complain but they made us shut up. Now we want them to move us away from this poisoned place but they refuse. My wife will die. And I have no hope for my son.”
Officials had told him that his land would be unusable for 60 years but that he could grow non-edible crops such as cotton or trees to clean the soil.
Farmer Yang has abandoned hope. “It’s the children, the children,” he lamented. “We want our children to have a future. We have to leave.”
Nation in flux
760,000
The estimated number of deaths from pollution in China in 2007
£32 billion
The estimated annual cost of air and water pollution to the nation’s coffers
10%
The average rate of growth experienced by the Chinese economy in the past 25 years
Sources: World Bank, Times database