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At least 20 factories in the Tianjin area of China, south-east of
Beijing, are continuing to operate even though the municipal
authorities have ordered them to close because they are creating
dangerous pollution.
Villagers in Liukuaizhuang and Xiditou maintain that officials, because they live in the unaffected city of Tianjin, are turning a blind eye.
The results of the pollution are cancer rates 20 to 30 times the national average, leading to the communities being labelled ‘cancer villages’.
The father of a five-year-old boy with leukaemia said: ‘there is no way out for us. We are still drinking the water. Where do we get the money to buy mineral water?’
A victim support centre at the China Politic and Law University, which has been studying the problem, has tried to help the residents to sue, but the courts will not accept the cases. Villagers say municipal officials are managing to cover up the evidence by persuading doctors in the area to stay silent about the link between the pollution and the cancer rates.
At Liukauizhuang independent studies have shown high levels of bacteria, fluoride and hydroxybenzene, a carcinogenic form of benzene, in the water. At Xiditou black sludge has been pouring out of a factory’s plastic pipes on to a riverbank.
The problems have mainly arisen since China’s economic revolution began in the 1980s and state owned factories were privatized. The Tianjin problem is the latest to be investigated by the university unit. The researchers say they are looking at 70 cancer village cases but cannot estimate how many Chinese communities are affected altogether.
Villagers in Liukuaizhuang and Xiditou maintain that officials, because they live in the unaffected city of Tianjin, are turning a blind eye.
The results of the pollution are cancer rates 20 to 30 times the national average, leading to the communities being labelled ‘cancer villages’.
The father of a five-year-old boy with leukaemia said: ‘there is no way out for us. We are still drinking the water. Where do we get the money to buy mineral water?’
A victim support centre at the China Politic and Law University, which has been studying the problem, has tried to help the residents to sue, but the courts will not accept the cases. Villagers say municipal officials are managing to cover up the evidence by persuading doctors in the area to stay silent about the link between the pollution and the cancer rates.
At Liukauizhuang independent studies have shown high levels of bacteria, fluoride and hydroxybenzene, a carcinogenic form of benzene, in the water. At Xiditou black sludge has been pouring out of a factory’s plastic pipes on to a riverbank.
The problems have mainly arisen since China’s economic revolution began in the 1980s and state owned factories were privatized. The Tianjin problem is the latest to be investigated by the university unit. The researchers say they are looking at 70 cancer village cases but cannot estimate how many Chinese communities are affected altogether.
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