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A split boulder that fell from Ky Son Mountain last year lies next to Nguyen Van Tien’s house in Binh Dinh Province. |
The granite of Binh Dinh is a money-spinner for some, but it’s not so wonderful for the people choking on dust and living below a loose rock face.
They have to pinch their noses day and night every time they go outside as the dust blankets the entire area like fog.
“Just one unprotected breath can suffocate you,” says local resident Vo Ngoc Tuan.
The 71-year-old even finds breathing difficult inside his home despite closing every window and blocking every opening of the house.
According to Binh Dinh Province’s Department of Health, the dust is mostly silica, which can easily cause the chronic respiratory disease called pneumoconiosis.
Pneumoconiosis is a disease of the lungs much like silicosis caused by inhaling mineral or metallic dust over a long period.
“The granite is taken away while the residents are left with the pollution. We’ve been crying out for help but it just gets worse,” says Tuan, pointing at the trees turned white by dust.
In the 10 years since quarrying on Son Trieu Mountain in An Nhon District was expanded, hundreds of families in Phu Son Village have lived with dust in the air.
Many workers toil away on the mountainside. Dust from blasting and splitting the stone is blown into the houses only steps away.
Several homes have cracks in their walls because of the blasts.
“Granite is public wealth so anyone can take it if the government lets them, we won’t comment on that,” says Tuan.
“But this exploitation without any concern for the environment is a misery for the locals.”
Nguyen Thi Phuong, who lives nearest to the mountain, washes the floor of her house every 15 minutes so that her children won’t get dirty.
Her husband Tran Van Long used to work on the mountain but recently changed his job. “My wife and kids couldn’t recognize me when I came home dusty from top to toe,” he says.
Their children often get sore throats and feel itchy because their clothes are aired in the dust. “And let’s not mention the beds!” says Phuong.
The couple cannot afford to move away, not yet at least.
An old story
Rocky hills cover three quarters of Binh Dinh. With an estimated 700 million cubic meters of granite, it is by far the biggest source of the igneous rock in Vietnam.
A dozen businesses in the central province quarry, process and export granite.
Some like Anh Minh and Canh Minh operate without a permit from the provincial authorities. Instead, they pay off the local officials.
Son Trieu is not the only mountain being exploited for its granite. Ky Son and Hon Cha mountains in Tuy Phuoc District have suffered the same fate.
The people who live there can tell the same story as Tuan or Phuong and then some, like last year when a rock weighing upwards of 50 tons fell from Ky Son Mountain after heavy rain and stopped next to the house of Nguyen Van Tien.
Although quarrying on the mountain was suspended, the people living nearby are still living with the consequences.
Nguyen Van Tuc, for one, has to rent a field to cultivate as the dust destroyed his land as well as a stream where several families got their water.
Local officials in December voiced concern that 21 families living below Da Mountain were at risk of rocks falling from the abandoned quarry.
At Hon Cha Mountain, quarrying recently returned in disguise after being stopped in 2006.
Several businesses registered to use the site for splitting granite but began extracting the stone instead.
Others gained provincial approval to collect the rubble of past quarrying only to hire people to exploit the mountain further.
“I heard my employer planned to build a rock-splitting factory here three years ago, but there’s no sign of it so far,” says a quarryman who, like his coworkers, makes around VND100,000 (US$5.65) a day.
He says that anyone wanting to disguise an operation like that must “make the acquaintance of environmental officials,” as he puts it.
“Otherwise they will come by and close you down.”
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