Brazilian police uncover illegal gold mine in Amazon. Tunnels collapse after pursuit. Environmental and safety concerns rise.
They had a hidden tunnel network way out in the Amazon. Helicopters were needed to get there, and the miners worked secretly for a while.
Police found several small mines. One big mine went down 70 meters, and the structures seemed shaky and dangerous. Dark, damp, and cramped tunnels existed; ropes attached to a crane helped.
A collapse posed a major threat because the ground’s weight could have crushed them. Fissures weakened the tunnel’s support. Imagine the danger!
To get the gold, they moved soil, then they put it in basins, and lifted the basins outside. After that, they crushed the materials which were then mixed with cyanide to separate the gold.
Air quality was a huge problem, with lots of bad gases, like CO2, in the air. Miners used a pipe for fresh air, and a motor outside pumped air into the mine.
It is unclear who ran it, yet the area saw lots of small-scale mining. Gold prices went up in recent years, which likely fueled the illegal activity.
This kind of mining causes problems; deforestation increases, a charity says, and mercury pollution rises from the mines. Criminal activity escalates overall, human rights get abused, and indigenous people get displaced.
The charity said many miners work illegally in the Amazon, and they often mine in protected areas where mining is not allowed.
This illegal gold mining is linked to crime, and the illegal gold trade can be deadly. Drug trafficking gangs now mine illegally and are making parallel states in the Amazon. It’s scary, really.