*** Mining brings Chile city riches and fear of cancer | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN
Mining brings Chile city riches and fear of cancer

Mining brings Chile city riches and fear of cancer

AFP
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Antofagasta : Black dust stains the walls of the building where Jaqueline Jimenez and her children once lived in northern Chile.

In an industrial city like Antofagasta, there is perhaps nothing so unusual in that -- but Jimenez says she fears that this dust carries a poisonous burden, and that her children now bear it in their bodies.

It is blown on the wind from the nearby port, where copper from the region's abundant mines is loaded and shipped across the world.

Long known as a hub of production in the world's biggest miner of the red metal, Antofagasta has earned a darker distinction as Chile's cancer capital.

Authorities have called for calm, insisting that heavy metals cannot be breathed in and are only poisonous if ingested. But Jimenez is not convinced.

"It is not normal that everyone should be dying of cancer here," she says. "It is a death sentence for my family."

 

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