Thousands of impoverished Brazilian workers are flocking to a tiny Amazon outpost after rumors of the discovery of a "new Eldorado," sparking a desperate rush for gold and fears for the environment.
Reports in local newspapers claim that at least 3,000 Brazilians have arrived in the small town of Apui, in the state of Amazonas, since the new year, when traces of gold were found on the banks of the Juma river, 80km north of the town.
Ivani Valentim da Silva, a local teacher who has visited the illegal gold mine, said: "The excitement [at the mine] is so great they think [former Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein is still alive."
Paulo Sergio, a representative of Apui Air Taxis, a local airline based in the state capital, Manaus, said the firm's flights to Apui had been packed for weeks as goldminers scrambled to the region.
This week, as the influx of miners continued, a government delegation traveled to Apui, which has a population of fewer than 20,000, amid concerns about environmental destruction and outbreaks of malaria.
An editorial in the Diario do Amazonas warned that "nomad-ic" mining would leave "a trail of environmental and social" destruction, contaminating rivers with mercury, encouraging deforestation and bringing the threat of an explosion in drug use and violence to the once sleepy town.
There are also fears that the sudden influx of people could create another Serra Pelada, a vast gold mine in the neighboring state of Para that once attracted 30,000 workers and became notorious through the photographs of Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado.
Silva believes that around 300 men are still arriving at the isolated mine each day, despite signs that the gold may already be running out.
"At the moment Eldorado do Juma is occupied by carpenters, businessmen, farmers, drivers, teachers, bankers, evangelical pastors and professionals from every imaginable field," he wrote on the Web site Portal Apui this week.
During the 1980s, tens of thousands of Brazilians from all over the country made for remote gold mines in the Amazon jungle in search of a quick buck. In wild west-style Amazonian outposts, where gunslinging and child prostitution were rife, the rush created hundreds of instant millionaires with nicknames like Rambo and the White Panther.
Most of these mines have long since been abandoned, leaving virtual ghost towns in the middle of the forest, accessible only by boat or light aircraft.
Today around 500,000 miners are thought to work in the Amazon's garimpos, or gold mines. Most are impoverished men from the northeastern state of Maran-hao who slave away in hand-dug pits, often armed only with spades, electric pumps, a pair of flip-flops and a bottle of potent cachaca liquor.
Antonio Roque Longo, the mayor of Apui, told a newspaper that despite the sudden financial boom, the locals feared the invasion would bring an epidemic of prostitution, violence and disease.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was