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Bangkok, Thailand – A surge successful uncommon world mining successful rebel-held pockets of Myanmar supplying Chinese processing plants is being blamed for toxic levels of dense metals successful Thai waterways, including the Mekong River.
China dominates the planetary refining of uncommon world metals – cardinal inputs successful everything from upwind turbines to precocious rocket systems – but imports overmuch of its earthy worldly from neighbouring Myanmar, wherever the mines person been blamed for poisoning section communities.
Recent outer images and h2o illustration investigating suggest the mines are spreading, on with the biology harm they cause.
“Since the mining cognition started, determination is nary extortion for the section people,” Sai Hor Hseng, a spokesperson astatine the Shan Human Rights Foundation, a section advocacy radical based successful eastbound Myanmar’s Shan state, told Al Jazeera.
“They don’t attraction what happens to the environment,” helium said, oregon those surviving downstream of the mines successful Thailand.
An estimated 1,500 radical rallied successful bluish Thailand’s Chiang Rai state successful June, urging the Thai authorities and China to unit the mining operators successful Myanmar to halt polluting their rivers.
Villagers successful Chiang Rai archetypal noticed an unusual orange-yellow tint to the Kok River – a tributary of the Mekong that enters Thailand from Myanmar – earlier the commencement of this year’s rainy play successful May.
Repeated rounds of investigating by Thai authorities since past person recovered levels of arsenic and pb successful the stream respective times higher than what the World Health Organization (WHO) deems safe.
Thai authorities advised locals surviving on the Kok to not adjacent interaction the water, portion tests person besides recovered excess arsenic levels successful the Sai River, different tributary of the Mekong that flows from Myanmar into Thailand, arsenic good arsenic successful the Mekong’s mainstream.
Locals are present disquieted astir the harm that contaminated h2o could bash to their crops, their livestock and themselves.
Arsenic is infamously toxic.
Medical studies person linked semipermanent quality vulnerability to precocious levels of the chemic to neurological disorders, organ nonaccomplishment and cancer.
“This needs to beryllium solved close now; it cannot hold until the adjacent generation, for the babies to beryllium deformed oregon whatever,” Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia run manager astatine the advocacy radical International Rivers, told Al Jazeera.
“People are acrophobic besides astir the irrigation, due to the fact that … [they are] present utilizing the rivers – the h2o from the Kok River and the Sai River – for their atom paddies, and it’s an important harvest for the colonisation here,” Pianporn said.
“We learned from different areas already … that this benignant of enactment should not hap successful the upstream of the h2o root of a cardinal people,” she said.
A outer representation of a uncommon earths excavation tract connected the westbound broadside of the Kok River successful Myanmar’s Shan state, arsenic seen connected May 6, 2025 [Courtesy of the Shan Human Rights Foundation]‘A precise bully correlation’
Thai authorities blasted upstream mining successful Myanmar for the toxic rivers, but they person been vague astir the nonstop root oregon sources.
Rights groups and biology activists accidental the excavation sites are nestled successful pockets of Shan authorities nether the power of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a well-armed, secretive rebel radical that runs 2 semi-autonomous enclaves successful the area, 1 bordering China and the different Thailand.
That makes the sites hard to access. Not adjacent Myanmar’s subject authorities dares to nonstop troops into UWSA-held territory.
While immoderate person blamed the caller stream contamination connected the UWSA’s golden mines, the latest tests successful Thailand laic astir of the responsibility connected the mining of uncommon world minerals.
In a survey commissioned by the Thai government, Tanapon Phenrat, an subordinate prof of civilian engineering astatine Naresuan University, took 7 h2o samples from the Kok and surrounding rivers successful aboriginal June.
Tanapon told Al Jazeera that the samples collected closest to the borderline with Myanmar showed the highest levels of dense metals and confirmed that the root of the contamination laic upstream of Thailand successful Shan state.
Mekong River Commission (MRC) unit instrumentality a h2o illustration for investigating from the Mekong River on the Thai-Laos borderline connected June 10, 2025 [Courtesy of the MRC]Significantly, Tanapon said, the h2o samples contained the aforesaid “fingerprint” of dense metals, and successful astir the aforesaid concentrations, arsenic had earlier h2o samples from Myanmar’s Kachin State, northbound of Shan, wherever uncommon world mining has been thriving for the past decade.
“We compared that with the concentrations we recovered successful the Kok River, and we recovered that it has a precise bully correlation,” Tanapon said.
“Concentrations successful the Kok River tin beryllium attributed astir 60 to 70 percent … [to] uncommon world mining,” helium added.
The beingness of uncommon world mines on the Kok River successful Myanmar was archetypal exposed by the Shan Human Rights Foundation successful May.
Satellite images disposable connected Google Earth showed 2 caller excavation sites wrong the UWSA’s enclave connected the Thai borderline developed implicit the past 1 to 2 years – 1 connected the occidental slope of the river, different connected the east.
The instauration besides utilized outer images to place what it said are different 26 uncommon world mines wrong the UWSA’s enclave adjacent to China.
All but 3 of those mines were built implicit the past fewer years, and galore are located astatine the headwaters of the Loei River, yet different tributary of the Mekong.
Researchers who person studied Myanmar’s uncommon world mining manufacture accidental the large, circular mineral postulation pools disposable successful the outer images springiness the sites distant arsenic uncommon world mines.
The Shan Human Rights Foundation says villagers surviving adjacent the caller mines successful Shan authorities person besides told however workers determination are scooping up a pasty achromatic pulverization from the postulation pools, conscionable arsenic they person seen successful online videos of the uncommon world mines further northbound successful Kachin.
Two men basal wrong the postulation excavation of a uncommon earths excavation successful Kachin state, Myanmar, successful February 2022 [Courtesy of Global Witness]‘Zero biology monitoring’
Patrick Meehan, a lecturer astatine the University of Manchester successful the UK who has studied Myanmar’s uncommon world mines, said reports emerging from Shan authorities acceptable with what helium knows of akin operations successful Kachin.
“The mode companies thin to run successful Myanmar is that determination is zero pre-mining biology assessment, zero biology monitoring, and determination are nary of those sorts of regulations oregon protections successful place,” Meehan said.
The leaching process being utilized involves pumping chemicals into the hillsides to gully the uncommon world metals retired of the rock. That watery substance of chemicals and minerals is past pumped retired of the crushed and into the postulation pools, wherever the uncommon earths are past separated and gathered up.
Without cautious attraction to keeping everything contained astatine a mine, said Meehan, the risks of contaminating section rivers and groundwater could beryllium high.
Rare world mines are situated adjacent to rivers due to the fact that of the ample volumes of h2o needed for pumping the extractive chemicals into the hills, helium said.
The contaminated h2o is past often pumped backmost into the river, helium added, portion the groundwater polluted by the leaching tin extremity up successful the stream arsenic well.
“There is decidedly scope for that,” said Meehan.
He and others person tracked the effect specified mines person already had successful Kachin – wherever hundreds of mining sites present dot the state’s borderline with China – from once-teeming streams present barren of food to atom stalks yielding less grains and livestock falling sick and dying aft drinking from section creeks.
In a 2024 report, the biology radical Global Witness called the fallout from Kachin’s mining roar “devastating”.
Ben Hardman, Mekong ineligible manager for the US advocacy radical EarthRights International, said locals successful Kachin person besides told his squad astir mineworkers dying successful unusually precocious numbers.
The interest now, helium adds, is that Shan authorities and the neighbouring countries into which Myanmar’s rivers travel volition endure the aforesaid destiny arsenic has Kachin, particularly if the excavation sites proceed to multiply arsenic planetary request for uncommon world minerals grows.
“There’s a agelong past of uncommon world mining causing superior biology harms that are precise long-term, and with beauteous egregious wellness implications for communities,” Hardman said.
“That was the lawsuit successful China successful the 2010s, and is the lawsuit successful Kachin now. And it’s the aforesaid concern present evolving successful Shan state, and truthful we tin expect to spot the aforesaid harms,” helium added.
‘You request to halt it astatine the source’
Most, if not all, of the uncommon earths mined successful Myanmar are sent to China to beryllium refined, processed, and either exported oregon enactment to usage successful a scope of green-energy and, increasingly, subject hardware.
But, dissimilar China, neither Myanmar, Laos nor Thailand person the blase processing plants that tin alteration earthy ore into invaluable material, according to SFA (Oxford), a captious minerals and metals consulting firm.
The Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a section deliberation tank, says Chinese customs information besides amusement that Myanmar has been China’s main root of uncommon earths from overseas since astatine slightest 2017, including a grounds $1.4bn-worth successful 2023.
A signboard astatine the Thai colony of Sop Ruak connected the Mekong River wherever the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar conscionable [File: Sukree Sukplang/Reuters]Myanmar’s exports of uncommon world minerals were increasing astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic China was placing pugnacious caller curbs connected mining them astatine home, aft witnessing the biology harm it was doing to its ain communities. Buying the minerals from Myanmar has allowed China to outsource overmuch of the problem.
That is wherefore galore are blaming not lone the excavation operators and the UWSA for the biology fallout from Myanmar’s mines, but China.
The UWSA could not beryllium reached for comment, and neither China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor its embassy successful Myanmar replied to Al Jazeera’s emails seeking a response.
In a June 8 Facebook post, reacting to reports of Chinese-run mines successful Myanmar allegedly polluting Thai rivers, the Chinese embassy successful Thailand said each Chinese companies operating overseas had to travel section laws and regulations.
The embassy besides said China was unfastened to cooperating with Mekong River countries to support the section environment, but gave nary details connected what that mightiness entail.
Thailand has said it is moving with some China and Myanmar to lick the problem.
In a bid to tackle the problem, though, the Thai authorities has projected gathering dams on the affected rivers successful Chiang Rai state to filter their waters for pollutants.
Local politicians and environmentalists question whether specified dams would work.
International Rivers’ Pianporn Deetes said determination was nary known precedent of dams moving successful specified a mode successful rivers connected the standard of the Mekong and its tributaries.
“If it’s [a] constricted area, a tiny creek oregon successful a faraway standalone mining area, it could work. It’s not going to enactment with this planetary river,” she said.
Naresuan University’s Tanapon said helium was gathering machine models to survey whether a bid of cascading weirs – small, dam-like barriers that are built crossed a stream to power h2o travel – could help.
But he, too, said specified efforts would lone mitigate the occupation astatine best.
Dams and weirs, Tanapon said, “can conscionable dilatory down oregon trim the impact”.
“You request to halt it astatine the source,” helium added.
English (US) ·