On the morning of the last day of October, a group of people rode on old motorbikes, speeding up the top of Lan Toong mountain. The roar of the engines of the “outdated” motorbikes each time they climbed the slope tore the silence between the deep mountains and forests. It was the image of troops scavenging for tin ore in the “mineral capital”.
Lan Toong is a mountain located on the border between Chau Hong and Chau Thanh communes. After many years of tin mining, this mountain now looks like a honeycomb, with many holes left by businesses. From these holes leading deep into the mountain is a dense system of tunnels. Strangers entering here, if not focused, can easily get lost. After many years of tin mining, many businesses left but did not return the land according to regulations, leaving behind tunnels tens of kilometers long under the mountain. To earn a living, local people have risked going into these tunnels to collect the few remaining ore veins. In recent years, there have been many tunnel collapses, taking the lives of many people. However, just for a meal and a piece of clothing, they still have to gamble with death.
Until now, Mr. Luong Van Hien (33 years old) is still shocked when recalling the tunnel collapse that took the life of his young wife. Mr. Hien's wife was one of the three victims who died in the tunnel collapse on Lan Toong mountain more than three years ago. That day, like dozens of other households here, Mr. Hien and his wife rode their old motorbike up the mountain. That was the first working day of the year for him and his wife.
“I had just finished eating. I warned my neighbor that the place was dangerous and not to dig any further. But he still tried to dig a little more. While he was digging, the rock above collapsed. The neighbor and his wife did not have time to scream,” said Mr. Hien. Mr. Hien’s wife was also crushed by a part of the rock. That day, Mr. Hien’s entire Chao village was plunged into mourning. Three hearses followed each other to the cemetery, making many villagers shudder when thinking about their work. Especially since this was not the first time that local people had lost their lives on this mountain. But just a few days later, putting their fear aside, they flocked to Lan Toong mountain again, continuing with their familiar work of collecting tin ore.
According to the reporter, most of the tin in these tunnels has been collected by the enterprise, leaving only small pieces hidden inside the large rocks on the tunnel walls. The ore collectors will use flashlights to shine in, and the workers will recognize which is normal rock and which is tin. Then, they use hammers to chisel, if they are not careful or hit the existing cracks, the tunnel will collapse at any time.
Meanwhile, due to long-term abandonment, the wooden support piles in the tunnel have also rotted, many piles are broken and lying around. After the fatal accidents, the ore collectors are also a bit scared. But the mountain bottom is only quiet for a few days, because after that, the misery and poverty urge them to continue making a living with that profession.
“There are many ore mines here. But they don’t hire locals. So we have to rely on this job of collecting ore. We know it’s dangerous, but we don’t know what else to do to make a living,” Mr. Hien added.
Since the end of 2019, a series of wells in Chau Hong commune have started to dry up. Then, "death holes" appeared one after another. To date, 300 wells have dried up, 232 houses have cracked, not to mention a series of constructions such as commune headquarters and schools are also in the same situation, threatening people's lives. The peak was from March 2022. Many households "lost their appetite and sleep" for a long time, some had to evacuate, others had their whole families move to the porch or warehouse for fear of house collapse. The initial cause was determined to be that the mining enterprise had depleted the groundwater source.
Seeing the solid house of her daughter and her husband in danger of collapsing, Mrs. Luong Thi Huan (70 years old) burst into tears. Nearby, many people were urgently moving their belongings out of the house, with eyes full of confusion and fear. However, this was not the first time that Mrs. Huan and many people in Chau Hong commune were upset and had to cry out loud like that. For decades, they had to live in miserable conditions, facing all kinds of difficulties just because this land is the capital of minerals.
Chau Hong commune is a fairly wide valley, surrounded by towering rocky mountains. But those mountains are now eroded and crippled after decades of mineral exploitation. According to the elders, the people here are mainly Thai people, who have lived here for many generations. Previously, in front of them were vast rice fields. On the mountains, there were all kinds of products. During the off-season, they often walked along the stream banks to find minerals to sell, earning extra income. Life in Chau Hong commune was quite prosperous, until one day mineral exploitation enterprises came. That was in the late 80s of the last century. Currently, there are up to 13 mineral exploitation and processing enterprises in the commune. There was a period when there were more than 30 licensed enterprises in this commune, not to mention the illegal exploitation. That is why Chau Hong commune is also known as the "mineral capital".
Mr. Nguyen Van Sau (38 years old) in Poong village, Chau Hong commune said that most of the agricultural land of the villagers has been transferred to a company for more than 30 years to exploit tin ore below. “At that time, the company promised to exploit in a rolling manner. Once they finished working on a certain area, they would reclaim the land and return it to the villagers for further cultivation. But after waiting for more than 30 years, they still haven’t returned it,” Mr. Sau said, pointing to the vacant land at the beginning of the village. That was originally his family’s rice field from decades ago. After the company finished mining, for some reason, instead of reclaiming the land and returning it to the villagers for cultivation, the local government handed it over to other businesses to continue exploiting it and at the same time use it as a dumping ground.
Poong village is the most populous village in Chau Hong commune, with 146 households. However, the whole village now has only 4.5 hectares of productive land, much of which was reclaimed by local people. Previously, they could still rely on the forest to make a living, but the surrounding forests have now been zoned as protected forests and cannot be touched. Many households do not have a piece of land to cultivate, while the mines refuse to hire local people, so they have to leave their hometowns and go to make a living in foreign lands.
The wells have dried up. In the past, people only needed to walk a few hundred meters to a nearby stream to easily get water for daily use. But for many years now, since the ore mines sprung up, the water in the streams can no longer be used because of pollution. The Nam Ton River flowing through here is also seriously polluted, turning red for decades. The process of mining and enriching tin ore has generated many heavy metals such as Arsenic, Chromium, etc. These are factors that directly and seriously affect the health of water users, and in the long term will cause the risk of cancer.
Not only lacking arable land and clean water, people also have difficulty raising livestock. In the whole village now, the number of households raising buffalo and cows can be counted on the fingers. “Many people do not dare to raise them anymore. They are slowly dying. If you want to raise buffalo and cows here, you have to keep them in captivity and give them clean water to drink. If you let them roam free and drink polluted stream water, they will die anyway,” said Ms. Luong Thi May (45 years old). Not long ago, Ms. May had to slaughter her only cow. A day before, it suddenly died. When the stomach was cut open, the stomach was full of sand.
