Mining Harms Environment in 2008 Sichuan Earthquake Zone

A looming disaster after a disaster—near the epicenter of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, mining and factory waste is destabilizing the Longmen Shan region, according to a Chinese environmental activist.

Geology expert Yang Yong spent two weeks carrying out a survey of the region in August.

[Yang Yong, Environmental Activist]:
“Longmen Shan was the principle disaster area of the Wenchuan earthquake, the mountain tends to be very steep. After the earthquake, the geological environment became very bad. For the past few years, there have been mudslides happening over large areas. Many parts of the mountain have collapsed, slid off. On top of that, every rainy season this place is at the center of torrential rainstorms. Mining on a large scale here will have an influence on the environment.”

Yang says raw minerals and ores for factories near Deyang City and Mianyang Prefecture are all coming from open mines in the Longmen Shan region. Longmen Shan serves as a water source for the Chengdu plain and that water is getting more polluted due to mining in the region.

[Yang Yong, Environmental Activist]:
“The mining excavations and extraction of ore have gotten bigger since the disaster. This is like adding another disaster on top of one that already exists. At the same time the water sources are getting heavily polluted. A geological disaster continues to threaten the Chengdu plain. The future of the environment there is getting more worrying for people…The structure of industry should be changed here, they shouldn’t put this waste and highly polluting substances upstream form a city.”

The fault line between the Sichuan basin and the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau runs for almost 200 miles. Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces all felt the force of the earthquake.