Mines cause 30,000 Chinese to lose water access

Roughly 30,000 residents of a county in China’s southern Guangdong province will be unable to use water supplies from the Hejiang river for three weeks after the water was contaminated by illegal mines, China Daily reported. Guangdong officials discovered during the weekend that the river was contaminated by high levels of the metals thallium and cadmium, which are poisonous and carcinogenic. Officials upstream in Hezhou in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region closed 112 illegal mines on Saturday, 79 of which were verified as the sources of the pollution. A Hezhou vice-mayor apologized for local environmental officials failing to detect the contamination despite two tests.