SW Yunnan Province's Geiju City A Cancer Hotspot - 2% Of Residents Have Some Form Of Disease

AS the first college student from her village, A Yue from southwest China's Yunnan Province is doubly lucky to be studying in Beijing, because not only will she receive a higher education, but she can also leave her home in what has become known as "cancer village."

Up to 2 percent of residents in her village in Gejiu City have cancer, nearly 100 times the rate in China, and average life expectancy stands at less than 50.

Gejiu City has one-sixth of the world's tin deposits and A Yue's grandfather, a miner who worked in a tin mine for over 30 years, died of lung cancer. His three brothers passed away with the same disease. A Yue's father has left the mine but suffers serious tin poisoning, China Economic Weekly reported yesterday. The village's once fertile land is so contaminated that nothing can be grown locally and residents have to buy water and vegetables from towns several hundred kilometers away.

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Xiangjiang River, the major source of irrigation in central China's Hunan Province, was highly polluted as large volumes of industrial waste were dumped into it. The volume of arsenic, cadmium and lead in the river accounted for over 90 percent of the total discharged in the province, a study conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research showed.

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http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2011/201102/20110223/article_464476.htm

Not to mention the massive, uncontrolled pollution of China's coal-fired power plants.