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The Real Price of Gold
Written by Chris 
A lot has been written about the environmental damage done by gold mining.
A woman in Guinea searches for gold in a makeshift mining site
Less familiar is the harm that it does to the miners themselves. The gold that shimmers and sparkles in the windows of jewellers’ shops often comes tainted with the blood of the workers who produced it.
This problem was highlighted in October 2007, when more than twenty miners were killed in a landslide at a makeshift mine in Suarez, Columbia. Most of the workers were women, many of them single mothers. Their desperate financial situation left them with no choice but to scrape around for scraps of gold, using picks, shovels and bare hands. The victims were working at the bottom of a pit eight metres deep by fifty metres wide when rain triggered a sudden mudslide.
Equally horrific were the deaths in March 2004 of thirteen people at the Aneka Tambang gold mine in Indonesia. Most of the fatalities were illegal miners from surrounding villages, and nearly all died from smoke inhalation when a fire started underground. The cause of the blaze remains disputed.
It’s not just small-scale or illegal miners who are endangered; employees of the major mining corporations also risk their lives. In May 2005, four miners were killed near Johannesburg, when an earthquake caused tunnels to collapse. The following year, twenty-one people died at the Durasun mine in eastern Siberia after a fire broke out one hundred meters below ground. Welding equipment probably started the blaze.
Sometimes it isn’t just the miners who are at risk; their families can also be exposed. In May 1998, a truck overturned on the twisting mountain road that leads to the Kumtor Mine in Kyrgyzstan and landed in a river that supplies water to local villages. It was carrying cyanide, of which more than a ton spilled into the river. It was hours before local residents were warned, and in the following days hundreds became ill, while several died. The Canadian company running the mine agreed to pay compensation - but several years later the victims claimed not to have been paid, amidst allegations of corruption. By Tim Ingle, a director of Ingle & Rhode-The Ethical Jewellers. More of his work can be found at the I&R News Blog. If you want to find out all the real stories behind the products you buy, why not subcribe to our RSS feed? We'll even throw in a free album.
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Comments
Chris says:
Feb 9th, 2008 at 12pm
@Ken, your ability not to sympathise with people working to death in gold mines is actually pretty awful. The fact that you are so dismissive and treat the issue so superficially, implies that there is something wrong with you, not the article.
ken davies (not verified) says:
Feb 9th, 2008 at 8pm
@Chris, Yeah, I came across a little harsh -- it's not that I don't empathize with people -- it's more the ridiculous tear-jerk tone of the article.
You said "working to death in gold mines", but they're not "working to death" -- they're simply working and yes there occasionally are fatal accidents. BIG DIFFERENCE!
But that happens because it's part of life!
5.8 people per year globally -- let's try to get a little perspective on this. If you try to intervene or even become concerned about every situation where 5.8 people or more die each year on a global basis -- you'd be tied up full time on this.
People die -- that's just a reality. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, unhealthy eating and inactivity cause 310,000-580,000 deaths every year. That's just the U.S! Compare that to your 5.8 globally -- and now you're got something to write an article about.
Yes, there is something wrong with me (from your perspective) -- I'm not going fall into every overblown, overly emotional, issue that some idiot can contrive in hopes of getting people on some stupid campaign of "we need to change this or that"!
By the way -- according to JAMA over 100,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each and every year from a mis-prescribed or mis-administered drug.
There's absolutely nothing I can do about that -- and absolutely nothing I can do about the 5.8 people who die in gold mining each year. If you're really so concerned -- do something about it!
Just quite the stupid articles!
Phillip (not verified) says:
Feb 9th, 2008 at 8pm
God forbid we provide jobs to single mothers in a desperate financial situation.
ken davies (not verified) says:
Feb 10th, 2008 at 2am
@Phillip: Great comment! I loved it!
Perhaps we won't have to do that anymore. Since Chris sympathizes with them so completely, maybe he'll personally takes up the slack and support those single mothers world wide so they don't have to work at jobs that don't provide the workers with a 100% guarantee of their safety.
What say you Chris? Are you willing to step up to the plate now that the rubber hits the road?
Even if you can't support them all, with the lousy wages they make scraping around for scraps of gold, using picks, shovels and bare hands (which I have done by the way), you could surely take care of a few of them.
Just a few modifications in your personal lifestyle -- you know -- sell the TV and stereo, don't eat out anymore, downsize your car and home, sell some clothes, get a second job...
Of course, even after you've done all that, one of these single mothers could still get killed in any kind of accident. Or the kid could get killed -- or sick -- or maimed! OH MY -- OH MY -- what can we do?
Advice to Chris: Do what you can do -- leave the rest to God (if you believe in a Creator Being) or just leave the rest to Nature (if you don't).
But please -- grow up and stop the hysterical B.S.
Kaijewels (not verified) says:
Mar 15th, 2008 at 12am
We need to find a way to improve the conditions of labor in these mining areas. Just boycotting gold jewelry would not serve the purpose. Remember that the gold jewelry industry gives direct or indirect employement to over 100 million worldwide. Gemstone cutters and polishers also make their living because of the jewelry industry. We need to review both sides of the coin, since jewelry is a luxury item dire necessity need not be the cause of suffering.
ken davies (not verified) says:
THE SKY IS FALLING -- THE SKY IS FALLING
Jeezuz Khrist -- what a stupid, lamebrain article!
Your desperate financial situation has apparently left you with no choice but to scrape around for scraps of disconnected information, using ... no brains.
Your knee-jerk-reaction stories document just 58 deaths -- over a 10 year period -- on a world-wide basis.
Gee! -- that's 5.8 deaths per year for the entire world.
Surely this is a major problem that must be dealt with immediately! Oh my -- oh my -- what can we do?
Those poor, poor people! What we need is absolute guarantees of perfect safety for everyone working in the gold mining industry -- then life will be perfect -- NOT!
Get a clue -- you're a total idiot!