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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 body 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 that was 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 material. 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 and 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 us telling it like that especially if it's children. maintains that my stomach hurts my head aches

a vision a list if you like when i asked my children to solve a problem if they could get tell it to conference up 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. was mcallister's household measuring elevated values for all heavy metals lead cadmium potassium and mercury all residents have levels that clearly exceed the world health organization's limits. giving. looked in. peruvian journalists have documented the worst cases. children confined to wheelchairs because their lead levels are more times to hide. cars from operation. dr fernando or sorries has

researched heavy metal exposure his study revealed alarming results. and i made up if you think the. government this is the us i found the most heavy metals in children and pregnant women. will tell us what it was but received. the children have lead 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 tough 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 if you not feel equal i don't know you would be a wealth. that's not just my opinion the world health organization says that to. us and that. these diseases are directly linked to peruse

worthless 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. but entire families are in thrall to gold fever sifting through the waste from the mines to find tiny fragments of gold. 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 sobbing kanada. when fortunato to 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 where it's hard but i've stayed i 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 lot in kanada for good but working in the shops has left its mark on the 59 year old. you know there's particulate matter everywhere in the mines. many colleagues die of pneumonia or from gas poisoning caused by one of the underground explosions yes but . once a month or 2 not a sells his gold to a trader it's usually worth about a 1000 euro so 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 and 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 bus. i sure know how to sew something blue

shimmering he dug with his hands and found the tire of the bus as. 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 to the mudslide and goal to 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. and 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 way. and. you point 3 inches don't you think i'll pose the we'll stay here until we find out what happened muscle soem huge and only wanting to do more to taste is what's happened is terrible this is negligence this and my small face in the shit ice. the morning after the disaster warning sirens sounded again 'd people were scared a 2nd mudslide was imminent and fled to higher ground. we heard the sirens at 530 that's when we came here without i.d.'s since then we've been waiting and still have no information that badly. the police blocked off a bridge and the main road up through monday nobody knew exactly what was going on

but it was gradually becoming clear that the mining company could no longer guarantee bruma deano was safe. though it would be even worse if there were more casualties that's why they're sealing off the area. the rescuers had to stop their work because of concerns that another dam above could collapse. the delay angered the families desperately waiting for news of their loved ones. every moment was precious. time. was nothing but i've had no information about my husband it's been 2 days now and it is now the 8 hours later they finally received the all clear signal for the 2nd dam the rescue work could continue. meanwhile the people of dino were trying to come to terms with the sheer scale of the disaster. on a ritas 28 year old nephew was in the canteen when the mudslide hit home. he went

to work and never came back but i do want to know is lying and. it's incredibly sad and you might say people prayed for the missing at the church next door but 4 days after the disaster sorrow was turning to anger at mine operator volley. yes stone gee this was no accident did 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. and so who's in with the here jim this is a human tragedy because it involves such a large number of victims who remains huge moves. environmental activists protesting outside the company headquarters. they say the commodities giant

invested too little in safety and oversight. bali 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 end. creased global demand for iron ore. body doesn't own no land the company only has licenses to mine there and if they can't 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. used to be state owned. the growth of the global demand for iron ore led to a rapid expansion in the 1970 s. it even operates its own pleat of ships. vala grew to be so powerful during the brazilian military dictatorship it was privatized in the 1990 s. but the state is still the majority shareholder. 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 bali 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 in volleys operations came under increasing scrutiny. this was a point that's in the as a so often the case and brazil regulations and controls may be moving in the right direction but according to the law there should have been 3 times as many inspectors on the disaster area to effectively inspect the reservoirs as there actually were. up to this bhajans was thought so you can hardly say the president

really takes environmental regulations seriously is that just just what the authorities had said 3 days before the accident was that these years although it's laws are right no government neither left nor right has actually implemented i'm. going to skip the g.d. since we can pick on. after the broom edina 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 28th seen the regional environmental agency issued the volley group with a permit classifying the dam as a level for 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 environmental 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. or does he even 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 to try to get retrospective approval it doesn't muddy since. environmental groups are calling for more rigorous state oversight what does each of them say and i knew best this yet they had all we can see there's less oversight because the environmental authorities have been massively on to cuss you

know is almost body there lays magnificus kills prison put me into a mess even with the laws that clear the control authority is to not have the resources to enforce them. it's. hardly any checks are carried out. because companies are accessing enormous pressure to prevent that. means to me to change the mcchrystal in the army this is going to brings me to the valley chris has been. taken to nations to politicians for a long time going to be we start economy but i. really thought i did the old anger about this has been rising in bruma denio 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 they thought about them the company knew that wasn't was hittite the i should have fixed it but they only think about it not about us yet you.

meanwhile locals are left facing the environmental impact reddish brown tailing slurry has contaminated the water. was awful we used to use this river but now there is no river any more it's. 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 instead of a possible peru. experts say a fine layer of toxic particles has settled over these mountains. they come from a nearby metal smelting plant. the chimney of 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. it never bothered us we never left anyway so we thought everywhere looked like this. i think 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 you. at 1st they called us a. little but that never bothered me because people like you londa also supported.

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. and. that's why operations in the la roja smelter have been scaled back although the complex hasn't been shut down completely and continues to contaminate the area with heavy metals your land a 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. he spent years tracking the way german companies continue to import raw materials from peru in spite of environmental problems. when it comes to raw materials germany is very dependent on peru. imports a lot of raw materials especially com for 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. pieces. of pollution caused by the supply chain are rare. mention of the stuff there isn't. so much there are more efforts to push things in the other direction. people writing that things are pretty good highlighting a couple of sustainable projects. but when you visit places like this things look a bit different than the stuff in the cinema it's almost. 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 destined to be we need to find

a balance when the field goes the smelting complex needs better filters to reduce contamination west means antoninus i don't see that in just one liter well yes i know they do but my main concern is the health of my children i even argue with my husband about this and i mean that enjoyed 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 they listen and must think that i mean india look this thank god that is in the church is not against my leader. you know this but we are against irresponsible money but he's 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 enlarging 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 normal this and that in the level of 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 niece helps them to bring much more into the organs for instance to get to the brain to the nestles 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. the 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 it's the way to think how to manage people patients having respiratory disease and also suffering from my navel. i'm only able to deal with such low levels of oxygen with the help of coca leaves. the leaves sole is about one euro 20 without them i wouldn't be able to do anything at

$5100.00 metres. you can either prepare them as tea or even better chew them. 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. 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 mats. 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. 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. almost misgovernance does they're going to move us 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 rick yuri. that's how we get the gold out of the rock. was the thing with some of the 1000000 on. the prospectors 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. i mean if i'm studying on the side and when i finish i

don't want to come back here to me when i come to get what your dream through united 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 specs and puddles of ice run off and urine. not even though that still doesn't have running water or a sewage system. but there is a cemetery. a 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 eduardo the 3rd aging cargo ship loaded with pigs. loading the ship is hard work but load 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. whatever his name is that a sack of rice weighs 50 kilos so that's $100.00 kilos for 2 sacks. yeah but every day we are not a truck full 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 unity among us. there are a few roads in the peruvian amazon so nearly everything has to be transported along the river. boxes sacks parcels and livestock. boats as small as the of the water the 3rd are logistical nightmare it takes hours before everything is stowed on board. the harbor master is already looking forward to a new container terminal it promises to make things simpler faster and better. i don't know if you will soon see 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 the us is the heathrow via a sprawling infrastructure project involving the dredging of 3 major tributaries of the amazon aims to create 3000 kilometers of deep draft channels along the river wide enough for larger ships. to. up. chinese consortium has been set up to manage the project which is due to start soon. 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 and it will take 3 days and 3 nights to

make it to you keep those assuming nothing goes wrong. and 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. or job but i mean i'm going to be navigating your way along these rivers is a real art. and in the end i inherited the talent from my father for the little pool 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 to. weaken a little bit of the view of the. thank you it means a lot to me that you are good but 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 in such shallow waters takes a great deal of experience. and. i wouldn't say what they. have to be familiar with the river. and keep a lookout for shifting sand banks that you think they're really dangerous. if you run into one honey thing can happen the ship can even capsize. smaller boats are used to move along the tributaries to the villages where many inhabitants opposed to he drove your 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 they any of that because a member of the ku comma people is one of the last who can still speak the common language you know not to come on my neck the t.v. market the market free now. if they put it that means how long and where are you from we need them. today they are neither has a visitor i said that been che's an activist who is committed to preserving cool calm a culture. she fears that the new infrastructure projects will do lasting damage. i think almost give my heels a kid in the new technology and the machines they'll bring in will have a devastating impact marking us it will destroy a lot of things when i say some of this be humongous i'm really glad it wasn't cool

weather means life for us and for the animals little things and i mean mine. is that with edith and me the loser is everything they own will be just dandy it's as important as having a supreme being in light of. the rivers and lakes of the amazon are central to the calmest culture they believe there's another world under the water whether 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. in the. home but the protests against the new water highway also have a very practical dimension. still the runs of 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 going to see the river here is constantly changing older people here will tell you that 2 streams appear and disappear give us a little theme we're not meant to interfere he. still does point is one leading scientists are raising as well. many of them have reservations about the project one is jorge are bought by a mental engineer who has spent 2 years researching the amazon. he says the network of waterways here has shifted constantly for millions of years. we got plenty of it may even be a bit more even not even a lot of transport more save in that more then. one more they know that more than we never have done. i think. we don't know enough 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 last. time thanks to the one being black. was you know people want to be nice to say yes that may be showing that maybe you don't need to take part in maybe not truly you don't even really think you know i think you know somebody said. 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. and. 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 like struction 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. as if there's no drinking water that makes me afraid. you can die if you drink the water here and you. can't because you know.

pedro accuses the government of putting profit before people in the region and he doesn't believe the amazon infrastructure project will change anything. scene i mean you can see on the bus in the 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's going to stop here to buy our fish it's all dissin from ation. the government rejects these accusations saying that the hits rovio will also benefit local communities where you are in the middle of it if you didn't you know that 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. on this unit but we will have a lot of work to do explaining the project to the people thank god we've been 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. all this isn't relevant to the add water the third's 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 but i mean the ship is securely mord what about you and. i think. that's the most important thing for me and i think what i'm. back in saturday pasco missouri or staffer constantine bittner meets a local activist jaime luis sealed up on say publicizes the health problems caused by elevated lead levels and children's blood. but. he has been criticizing the lack of protective measures for years. and most of the c.b.c. i was going to see too few dollars to says 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 sadder they pasco. but to date the activists have seen little response to their protests. in those facilities which you see the music when you put it is that 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 in south that pasco haven't been eliminated either. 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 who will be does this face here that we feel forgotten or. turned to other cities but as we've given a lot to peru and our government in sudan but we've got nothing back. where much more soft and other places is that they always get you at the sudan. but center

there 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. to my your. limiting number. can now return to the nothing holiday island. but during the planet and them everything is different. and return 6 the party seems to be over. the face is like a laboratory. and what the locals say when the germans come to visit some kids on your own. 30 minutes on. society faces

a coronavirus meltdown is the crisis also an opportunity. it's focused attention on the problems of. labor shortages overstretched health care spotty internet access. is it time for a major rethink. made in germany. in 90 minutes on d w. we know that this is very time for the coronavirus is changing the world changing. so please take care of yourself good distance wash your hands if you can stay at how we do w. for here for you we are working tirelessly to make you informed don't overplan.

we're all in this to be done together make an effort. to save everyone. is very safe stay safe freeze it's freezing. and. this is news and these are our top stories the u.s. state of texas has paused plans to reopen its economy amid a surge in covert 1000 cases several states are seeing record high numbers of new infections forcing officials to rethink plans to ease lockdown restrictions. on the shareholders at lufthansa have accepted a 9000000000 euro rescue package for the airline the bailout will make the german government the carriers biggest stakeholder with a 20 percent.