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you can't see it but these children have poison in their blood the director of the primary school instead of the pasco in peru says learning and concentration difficulties are usually the 1st sign to this minute when they sneeze the blood often comes out of their noses. you know cool they struggle to pay attention for longer stretches of time so it's not as if i'm sure it's due to the lead in their blood that's on. the school is right next to a gigantic open cast mine. the crater dominates the town of saturday possibly. the global economy is hungry for wrong materials. but this comes at a high cost $1.00 that many south americans have to pay. some even with their lives.

saturday pasco is a town in the heart of the peruvian andes in peru in the sight of a huge open cast mine extracting zinc silver and lead for global markets. the mine is now owned by a swiss commodities giant glencore glencore recently paid several $100000000.00 for it but the people who live here pay an even higher price so today pasco lies in an altitude of 4300 meters locals absorb heavy metals into their bloodstream through the tap water. on the side of the leg makes this time it had a special effects children. maintains that my stomach hurts my head aches

a vision a list if you like when i ask my children to solve a problem if i quickly get tell it. to come from shop you know you're looking. next door as a health center with a poster that reads led campaign. everyone can get tested for heavy metals there. doesn't that is his house and we are measuring elevated values for all heavy metals lead cadmium potassium and mercury all residents have levels that clearly exceed the world health organization limits. scathing. peruvian journalists have documented the worst cases. children confined to wheelchairs because their lead levels are more times too high. cars from operation. dr fernando or saudis has

researched heavy metal exposure his study revealed alarming results. in my made up if you think in paulus you don't feel sick i mean this is a student mean yes even when i found the most heavy metals in children and pregnant women sort of tell us what it means but we feel. the children have let in their blood which means they have problems with nervous system development from a young age and reduced i.q. is as they get older. and that's half is when they're little or several you'll look up a little i have also discovered levels of arsenic which is carcinogenic always i mean one time quickly enough to feel equal i don't know you would be a wealth and actually that's not just my opinion the world health organization says that to. us and that. these diseases are directly linked to peruse ruthless exploitation of natural resources for export. the whole

country is in its grip. we're on our way through a barren landscape to the highest town in the world. you can smell the garbage long before you even reach. hundreds of tons of waste surround the town in a ring several kilometers deep. the locals say the state has little power in this town of 50000 people perched 5100 meters up in the andes. if you are originally from this inhospitable region.

they came to this place to find gold. there is more gold here than anywhere else. entire families are in thrall to gold fever sifting through the waste from the mines to find tiny fragments of gold dust. none of the mines or official. everyone is in or for themselves. nobody has a permit. not even the gold diggers who have driven their miles long shafts into the mountains. 10 years ago the gold boom attracted thousands of impoverished peruvian salatin kanada. when fortunato 2 k. 1st arrived just a few 100 people were living in the town where nighttime temperatures can drop to

minus 20 degrees celsius. someone told me back then that a lot in kanada had a future it's hard but i've stayed i've been here almost 24 years now. the mining companies have complete power if you don't play by their rules you get fired still fortunato held out soon he'll have earned enough to leave lauding kanada for good but working in the shops has left its mark on the 59 year old. there's particulate matter everywhere in the mines. many colleagues die of pneumonia or from gas poisoning caused by one of the underground explosions us. once a month or 2 not a sells his gold to a trader it's usually worth about a 1000 euros. that's a pretty good income for peru. here in the wild west people can at least scrape

a living but elsewhere they are paying for raw material exports with their lives. a burst dam in bruma denio in brazil in early 2019 had fatal consequences. bali it was the mining company responsible for the disaster. rescue workers dug desperately through the mud in sludge to find survivors among the 300 people reported missing. more often than not they only found bodies. some had even been buried in a boss. who how to sew something blue

shimmering he dug with his hands and found the tire of the bus. it was noon when the dam of the iron ore mine collapsed without warning. an employee recorded this video where he says all workers were sitting at the lunch table. to talk to the mudslides and bolt hundreds of workers and residents below the reservoir. brown red possibly toxic mud flooded the valley. the emergency services saved one young couple in the nick of time. just. this woman also escaped from the ruins i think. it took just one hour to devastate the entire valley. distraught relatives. gathered at an emergency response center many received trauma

counseling. most had to learn that their brothers fathers or uncles were still missing so they waited even as hope of finding survivors waned. pointer hinch and on choosing opposition we'll stay here until we find out what happened mosul soem change in only one moment if this is what's happened is terrible this is negligence this and my small phasing in the shit i said. the morning after the disaster warning sirens sounded again people were scared a 2nd mudslide was imminent and fled to higher ground. as i live and we heard the sirens at 530 that's when we came here with our i.d.'s since then we've been waiting and still have no information that by law they need. the police blocked off a bridge and the main road of reminding the moment nobody knew exactly what was going on but it was gradually becoming clear that the mining company of ali could

no longer guarantee bruma deano was safe this is a hardship when the it would be even worse if there were more casualties that's why there sealing off the area. the rescuers had to stop their work because of concerns that another dam above could collapse. the delay anger the families desperately waiting for news of their loved ones. every moment was precious. time. was nothing at all i had no information about my husband it's been 2 days now because you know the 8 hours later they finally received the all clear signal for the 2nd dam the rescue workers continue. meanwhile the people of burma denio were trying to come to terms with the sheer scale of the disaster. ana rita's 28 year old nephew was in the canteen when the mudslide hit. he went to work

and never came back but. now is lying. it's incredibly sad to yuma. people prayed for the missing at the church next door but 4 days after the disaster sorrow was turning to anger at mine operator of ali. this was no accident it was a crime. no amount of financial compensation will bring our friends back to conspire god and vali is now under investigation by brazil's justice department which has frozen over 2000000000 euros of the company's assets. so who's in work at a vigil this is a human tragedy because it involves such a large number of victims really and you reach moose. ringback environmental activists protesting outside the company headquarters. they say the commodities giant invested too little in safety and oversight. is one of the world's biggest

iron ore exporters. many people have accused the company of deliberately flirting with disaster in order to be able to meet the increased global demand for iron ore . body doesn't own no land the company only has licenses to mind there and if they can even do that without making mistakes contaminating rivers and killing people. in bali is now facing probably the biggest crisis since it was founded 77 years ago. he used to be state owned. the growth of the global demand for iron ore led to a rapid expansion in the 1970 s. and even operates its own fleet of ships. vala grew to be so powerful during the brazilian military dictatorship that it was privatized in the 1990 s. but the state is still the majority shareholder of. the 2009 economic crisis hit volley hard the company which is dependent on global demand had to layoff many

workers. but the past few years have seen a marked turnaround baalei was able to cash in on increased demand for iron ore in china and europe and has become a heavyweight in the brazilian stock index. the company has massively expanded its mining activities and generates billions in profits then in november 2015 a dam belonging to one of ali's subsidiaries collapsed 1000 people were killed and volleys operations came under increasing scrutiny just on the. moment this was a point us in the as a so often the case and brazil regulations and controls may be moving in the right direction as will set them up according to the law there should have been 3 times as many inspectors in the disaster area to effectively inspect the reservoirs as there actually were. the sky is up to this was thought until you can hardly say the results really takes environmental regulation seriously is that just just what the

authorities had said 3 days before the accident was that these years although its laws are right that no government neither left nor right as actually implemented them in france will be unsuitable in just give the g.g. a simple republican. after the bruma dino tragedy the authorities suspected that a brazilian subsidiary of germany's took may have been partly to blame and arrested 2 of its employees. documents show that the 2 men had certified the dam as safe just a few months earlier and the investigators wanted to know why. but the dam may have burst due to factors that had only come into play after the inspection. in december 20. 8th in c. issue the volley group with a permit classifying the dam as a level 4 in other words medium safety risk. but the minutes of an earlier environmental commission show that the risk level had previously been

a 6 heightened risk. the. metal agency also approved an expansion of mining activity this was significant because it also involved work around the dam. media reports cited this as an express permit it was issued just a few weeks before the accident and for saw a 70 percent increase in production. and environmental activists from the disaster area accuses the mine operator of negligence. here. the valley group must have noticed that something in the dam was out of whack because of its illegal activities and then a month before the accident tried to get retrospective approval. environmental groups are calling for more rigorous state oversight was each of them said i knew best is yet the had all we can see there's less oversight because the

environmental authorities have been massively on to cuss though this is almost by the lazy magnificus skills which is employment most even with the laws that clear the control of farce he's do not have the resources to enforce them. so hardly any checks are carried out. because companies are excess an enormous pressure to prevent them. means to me to dish them up it's all in the offing this is going to bring jimmy the vinaigrette as has been making donations to politicians for a long time going to be we started coming but i. thought i did the old anger about this has been rising in bruma dean you know where they are also aware this wasn't the 1st mining disaster. on a rita the aunt of the 28 year old who died there is scathing about the lack of oversight because. then the company knew that wasn't was her tight i should have fixed it but they only think about the profit of not about us yet you.

meanwhile locals. are left facing the environmental impact reddish brown tailing slurry has contaminated the water. we used to use this river but now there is no river anymore it's finished. the locals like the tour who rely on tourism are worried about making ends meet it will take months before the whole area is decontaminated. it's a disaster with both human and environmental dimensions a lot of questions still haven't been answered especially about lax oversight and whether it was tolerated to increase profit margins. back in said or they pasco peru. experts say a fine layer of toxic particles has settled over these mountains. they come from a nearby metal smelting plant. chimney the

smelter now releases fewer sulphur dioxide lead and arsenic fumes into the air than it used to. just a few years ago it was still running at full blast. at . it never bothered us we never left oh yeah anyway so we thought everywhere looked like this. let's get it at i think not the consequences of the air pollution still haunt the residents many of whom suffer from chronic diseases blood lead levels are 4 times higher than the w h o's upper limits pablo has serious neurological complaints but he still supports your londa and her fight for better environmental standards if you. don't at 1st they called us never used. to but that never bothered me because people like your londa also supported. your community. the catholic church and international

organizations helped us to get the peruvian state to finally recognize the poisoning that affects us as well as our diseases. to continue as you can name a few that we listen to this gift and. that's why operations in the law old royal smelter have been scaled back although the complex hasn't been shut down completely and continues to contaminate the area. heavy metals your lunda says the smelters legacy will be felt for years to come she's meeting constantine bittner who works for the german n.g.o.s adie or he spent years tracking the way german companies continue to import raw materials from peru in spite of environmental problems. but . when it comes to raw materials germany is very dependent on peru much on imports year to imports a lot of raw materials especially copper lead silver or gold mallette dinner.

and it would have a huge problem if the peruvian supply chain were to break down. concerted efforts to expose the human rights abuses in terms of pollution caused by the supply chain a rare. mention of ice to the basin. so almost there are more efforts to push things in the other direction. people writing that things are pretty good just highlighting a couple of sustainable projects like that but when you visit places like this things look a bit different than just of this in. the future of the smelter is a sensitive issue in la jolla one that even divides families. some want more operations to create jobs others take a different view. is going to stem the we need to find

a balance when the field goes the smelting complex needs better filters to reduce contamination west means antoninus you and i see fit and that's where light oh yes i know they do but my main concern is the health of my children i even argue with my husband about this in the one hand i'm an idiot i both work in the mining industry. i expect the mine operators to act more responsibly. one person in la jolla who's been on the side of the victim since the very beginning is cardinal pedro about 80 who also comes from a mining region. for years he has witnessed the many deaths caused by the ruthless exploitation of mineral resources. and a listen most think on that i mean it is look this thing. in the church is not against. this but we are against irresponsible market but he said 6 of us for the peruvian state allows foreign companies. to basically earn their weight in

gold here while at the same time causing such regrettable consequences for the peruvian people and the environment. but living at altitudes as high as perils and days already poses health risks especially for the dreamers and schemers unloading kanada. a team of french scientists in 2019 set out to find out how the backbreaking labor here at 5100 meters altitude is affecting the miners bodies. they took blood samples from the gold miners to measure the number of red blood cells the blood cells that transport oxygen. there is less oxygen in the thin air up here than at sea level. the scientists wanted to find out how people had adapted to these extreme conditions. which is a normal person that can only go. about 40 percent here we measured

a lot of people above 80 percent which is a huge amount of red blood cells in the blood and this helps them to bring much more into their organs for instance to the to the brain to meso. the results indicated the miners bodies had adapted to the altitude their blood was then or the normal and stress tests revealed their hearts were working at a maximum capacity. study was also intended to help people living at sea level. so learning how these people here. can manage to leave we've so few oxygen. to think how to manage people patients having respiratory disease and also suffering from my pox. i'm only able to deal with such low levels of oxygen with the help of coca leaves. the leaves soul is about 20 without

them i wouldn't be able to do anything at 5100 metres altitude you can either prepare them as tea or even better chew them. a gold digger fortunato shows me how to do it even after all these years he still feels the need to chew coca leaves as do most of the miners here. this seems like a ghost town to me but eric ramos chooses to spend his university educations here laboring to extract the coveted precious metal from the ground. for this he and his relatives begin by washing the earth and rocks. further downstream the gold falls through the gratings and gets caught in math. with temperatures only around 5 degrees celsius it's hard work even for a fit 21 year old like eric. it's pretty tough out here in the cold.

but i think i'm lucky because we're finding a lot of gold and we can buy furniture and stuff. like that mercury plays a key role in the process it's used to separate the gold from the rock but that requires repeated rinsing in the cold mountain air. does it one of them or less so we're mixing it here like this by adding mercury to the slurry of rock and gold. in the end i get a mixture of gold and mercury and. that's how we get the gold out of the rock. when something is done with the money and. the prospect there's then pour the mix into metal pans and sift out the little clumps of gold unlike his father eric doesn't intend to work like this forever. and i mean if i'm studying on the side and when i finish i don't want to come back here on the people that got them to get what your

dream through you had to do and i want to be a teacher. almost everyone here once had dreams but most of them have been shattered. many gold diggers get stuck in a lot in kanada somewhere between bars and brothels. under the spell of gold. and. before we leave we see women in the town searching for gold specks and puddles of ice run off and urine. not in ca now that still doesn't have running water or a sewage system. but there's a cemetery. of gold prospectors last resting place. the cold the poisons the garbage each takes its toll on people in the world's

highest town. we travel a bit further into the peruvian amazon. we come upon the unwatered of the 3rd aging cargo ship loaded with pigs. loading the ship is hard work but lowed wake is still glad to have a job as a porter at least until he starts to work out how much he's been carrying. his that's not a sack of rice weighs 50 kilos so that's $100.00 kilos for 2 sacks. yeah given every day we are not a truckful which adds up to several times. ludwig and his colleagues spend about 3 hours loading and unloading the ship then they have to take

a break. but their jobs may soon be obsolete anyway. the peruvian government is planning to build a modern and fully automated transshipment terminal in the port town of u.t. mogwai us. there are a few roads in the proving amazon so nearly everything has to be transported along the river. boxes sacks parcels and livestock. boats as small as the other water the 3rd are a logistical nightmare it takes hours before everything is stowed on board. master is already looking forward to a new container terminal it promises to make things simpler faster and better. some progress here peruvian brazilian and all the other boats will soon be able to pass through all year round and carry more cargo do.

the harbormaster is hoping for a dramatic increase in exports of raw materials to china. and he. he drove via a sprawling infrastructure project involving the dredging of 3 major tributaries of the amazon aims to create 3000 kilometers of deep channels along the river wide enough for larger ships. a peruvian chinese consortium has been set up to manage the project which is due to start soon here. we're building an extensive system of waterways that will open up new opportunities right now when the water level is low ships can only operate during the day not at night this project will greatly improve transportation links. but that's still all in the future for the time being traders and passengers remain dependent on boats like the eduardo the 3rd. it will take 3 days and 3 nights to

make it to you keep those assuming nothing goes wrong. the. sign perez says the ship's captain he's been sailing the amazon for 25 years. for him it's not just a job but a calling. the world cup i mean another navigating your way along these rivers is a real art. i inherited the talent from my father. a little i'm the only one of his sons to have carried on the tradition and i hope that the generation after me will continue it too. you can have a bit of that you love they. say you it means a lot to me. you have to put it in if you don't which i. think. these days the captain doesn't spend much time at the helm.

he now has other people to do that task for him. like. who's also been on the job for decades. sailing and such shallow waters takes a great deal of experience. and. i was busy but. we have to be familiar with the river and keep a lookout for shifting sand banks. they're really dangerous. if you run into one honey thing can happen the ship can even capsize so the. smaller boats are used to move along the tributaries to the villages where many inhabitants opposed to his role via project. relations between locals and the central government are strained many local people are part of the indigenous community or have indigenous roots they've suffered

a long history of persecution and injustice and are still discriminated against. a member of the ku comma people is one of the last to can still speak the common language you know next to calm my neck you baby. market the market free now. if they put it one that means how are you and where are you from they need them. today they are neither has a visitor i said the pinch is an activist who's committed to preserving cool calm a culture she fears that the new infrastructure projects will do lasting damage. i think almost but not here as a kid in the new technology and the machines they'll bring in will have a devastating impact it will destroy a lot of things one assumes that some of this humongous almost a 1000000 little place this is called

a river means life for us and for the animals little things and i mean mine. is that with he with them in the water is a free thing to be be somebody it's as important as having x. or 3 light in. the rivers and lakes of the amazon are central to the coup camas culture they believe there's another world under the water where their ancestors gather and where people spirits and animals all live together. for the comma any harm to the rivers and lakes with threaten the balance of the spiritual realm. the only. home but the protests against the new water highway also have a very practical dimension. still that runs a painting school. she says you only have to look at the course of the river to see that dredging and channeling are

a bad idea. so it's almost see the river here is constantly changing older people here will tell you that 2 streams appear and disappear give us honesty and we're not meant to interfere. since this point is one leading scientists are raising as well. many of them have reservations about the project one is jorge obama veyron mental engineer who has spent years researching the amazon. he says the network of waterways here has shifted constantly for millions of years. we have plenty of and they even think there's more to live their lives even if they want to have one more statement that more they're. finding out what may not be more there that we never had than. i got and they featured here so

we don't know now that's why he's begun evaluating samples satellite images and other measurements at a survey like this takes time and he says the government doesn't want to wait at the same time the government's own surveys are inadequate are the commercial interests involved simply too powerful. basically i mean what i believe that the the last. time things they do they want to do mean black. crowes you know we want to be nice to think that maybe showing that maybe you don't need to pay for them maybe not really believe it but you know by thinking you don't buy them. dredging the river at the wrong place could have disastrous consequences he says it could upset the ecological balance and in danger of local biodiversity. even if existing waterways are expanded and no new roads are built it still carries high risks. this group of young

filmmakers are shooting a documentary on current environmental problems traveling through the amazon region to talk to local people and get evidence of environmental pollution on film. or the extraction is a major polluter many of the pipelines leak pager wants his video footage to show that pipeline maintenance and cleanup operations aren't working anywhere near as well as the government claims. it was the year in the middle of my country in the middle of peru the reality is there's nothing other than pollution and then. there's no drinking water and that makes me afraid you can die if you drink the water here and you. think this is.

pedro accuses the government of putting profit before people in the region and he doesn't believe the amazon infrastructure project will change anything. sure they tell us how things will improve the government says the big ships from other countries coming up here will buy our products. but that's not how things will be. nobody is going to stop here to buy our fish it's all dissin from ation. the government rejects these accusations saying that the he drove will also benefit local communities where you are there are many of them if they give you. the indigenous people will benefit enormously it will help them get around quicker to the dr for example the new infrastructure will make a lot of things easier. but we will have a lot of work to do explaining the project to the people. that are moving in for you. so it seems the government still has some convincing to do if it wants to push

through its controversial plans to increase exports of raw materials and. all this isn't relevant to the eduardo of the thirds operators right now. they just want to move their cargo as fast as possible get it unloaded and continue on their way. but sign perez still hopes to captain bigger and more modern ships up and down the river one day. he and his crew once again mastered the tricky currents and are welcomed with music. the porters quickly begin to unload the much needed cargo. in a few days they will leave again with a fresh load of people cargo and stories on his next journey along the lifeline the peruvian amazon. at the

moment before we arrive safely at the moment i meet the shipper securely mord and what about your. nothing brownout. that's the most important thing for me and i think what i'm. back instead of the pasco mazetti or staffer constantine bittner meets a local activist. jaime louise sylvan up on say publicizes the health problems caused by elevated blood levels and children's blood. he has been criticizing the lack of protective measures for years and to me. this appears to be this year i was going to see too few dollars to sit we have been identifying excessively high blood levels for years now we've even had help from

international institutes. and maybe that's what the ministry of health still hasn't done anything to alleviate chronic heavy metal poisoning on children. because you could only get them with those pieces but is it only b.s. if you're a student news. shows us a film of children describing their headaches and nosebleeds. both symptoms are linked to the constant toxicity and said oh they pasco. but to date the activists have seen little response to their protest. in those days when you see the music when you put it in 2017 we protested in front

of the ministry of health for 10 days. following that they signed declarations of intent. but the treatment of the hundreds of thousands of children who have to live with heavy metal toxicity is only progressing slowly and it's still inadequate. for now children still have to live with it and as you can see the environmental problems instead of that bus go haven't been eliminated either. it took the. clinic or released a written statement saying the company was doing everything within its power to keep the human impact to a minimum and that it will take further protective measures. for many children however these could come too late for the same people will be done 6 days a year that we feel forgotten and. battered to other cities but as we've given a lot to peru and our government in sudan but we've got nothing back that. we're much more softened other places is that they always get what the sudan. but said of

their pasco is just one of many places in south america caught in the stranglehold of the global greed for raw materials places where bulldozers rip open the earth and poisons eat their way through people's bodies. coal india. documenting traditional methods saving truth and species. biologist a simple argue our collection down there is the kinds of plants and animals you go astray. and research will help to create a comprehensive catalogue bio diversity in the eco people. on t.w. . in good shape. how do people cope with play with

physical disability. we'll talk to some more leading productive lives despite their disability. and they do that with great strength. imagination the mobs of humor. good cheer. in 30 minutes on d w. they were forced into an aimless mass. their bodies are tools. the history of the slave trade is africa's history. describes how the greed for

power and traffic plummeted and entire continent into chaos and violence. this is the journey back into the history of slavery. our documentary series slavery routes starts march 9th on d w. this is d w news and these are our top stories in venice carnival has been canceled as authorities in italy try to contain the spread of the corona virus 3 people have died in the outbreak that has hit the north of the country several towns are on lockdown.