Vast populated areas along the upstream area of Lam River in the central province Nghe An have been left dry and polluted after local rivers and streams have contaminated and drained by miners searching for gold.

The riverbed has been turned into pools and heaps of soil. Water gets almost dried up

Sifting for gold

Mining work there, both legal and illegal, has been performed all day and night for years. Machines dig up the riverbed and pump up thousands of tonnes of mud, soil, sand, stone and gravel so miners for gold sifting.

One villager, Vi Thi Lan, said oil has contaminated the river. She said mercury, which is a toxic chemical used for gold extraction, has seeped into the water as well.

“Many years ago, it took my husband an hour to catch enough fish in the streams for several days of food,” Lan said. “Now, we can’t find a single fish.”

The pumping has deformed the riverbed, turning it into numerous separate pools and trenches containing stagnant muddy water, with big piles of soil and sand heaped next to the water.

With the pollution of the river and its tributary system, which is the main natural source of fresh water supply in the upstream-river region, crops and the daily lives of locals have been badly affected.

The water contamination has also made a system of water pipes become useless as the system relies on water from the Lam River.

Water scarcity

Huoi Nguyen River, a tributary of the Lam River, which threads through forests at the feet of mountains in Tuong Duong District, has become the focus of gold miners for years.

Apart from mineral exploration by the Hai Long Company, which had been granted legal permits, most of the remaining mining operations are illegal.

The area where the river used to flow now looks more like a construction site. On a dry area of 1,000 sq.m. of riverbed, 15 pumping and digging machines were operating. The Huoi Nguyen River running through Nghe An is around 100 kilometres long, and most of it has been turned into mining sites.

Many locals have also joined the gold rush and have begun digging up the riverbed, using the argument that rivers and mountains are an inheritance from ancestors.

In the mountains, many inhabitants of Thai ethnic minority villages along the river are suffering from a severe scarcity of fresh water.

Locals have found a way to filter fresh water by digging holes in the alluvial ground of the riverbed at a depth of 50 centimetres so the muddy water in stagnant pools can filter through the loose soil to be scooped out for use.

In Xop Khau Village in Yen Thang Commune, local residents gather around a natural hollow lake, which is the unique reservoir of fresh water in the locality, to take turns taking water.

The lake is usually empty during peak times, between 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., when more locals come to get water when they are finished with farm work.