Over Two Decades of Impunity for Environmental and Health Disaster in Peruvian Village
By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jun 3 2022 (IPS) - “We are not asking for money, but for our health, for a dignified life,” is the cry of the people of Choropampa, which lawyer Milagros Pérez continually hears 22 years after the environmental disaster that occurred in this town in the department of Cajamarca, in Peru´s northern Andes highlands, on the afternoon of Jun. 2, 2000.
On that day, a Yanacocha Mining company truck spilled 150 kilograms of mercury on its way to Lima, the capital, leaving a glowing trail for about 40 kilometers on the road that crosses Choropampa, a town of 2,700 people located at an altitude of almost 3,000 meters.
The company, 95 percent of which is owned by a U.S. corporation, set up shop there in 1993, 48 kilometers north of the city of Cajamarca, where it operates between 3,400 and 4,200 meters above sea level. Yanacocha (black lagoon in the Quechua indigenous language) is considered the largest gold mine in South America and the second largest in the world, although its production is declining.
Children and most of the population started collecting the shiny droplets scattered on the ground and in the following days, responding to a call from the mining company that announced that it would purchase the material, they picked it up with their own hands, unaware of its high toxicity and that this exposure would affect them for life.
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https://www.ipsnews.net/2022/06/two-decades-impunity-environmental-health-disaster-peruvian-village/