Flooded Vietnam coal mines leaking toxic slurry into World Heritage-listed Ha Long Bay: environmentalists
Heavy rainfall in northern Vietnam has killed at least 17 people and inundated major coal mines, causing concern among environmentalists about the contamination of the nation’s top tourist attraction and World Heritage-listed Ha Long Bay.
A week of persistent rain in Quang Ninh province has displaced thousands of people as houses and roads deluged by floodwater runoff from 16 open pit coal mines and three coal-fired power plants escaped inadequate holding ponds.
Footage on local news website VnExpress shows communities in Cam Pha City evacuating through knee-deep muddy coal slurry from nearby mines that broke confinement banks last week.
In a statement, international clean water resources environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance said the runoff was filled with a potentially hazardous toxic slurry including heavy metals arsenic, boron, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese, selenium and thallium.
