Life is Crying !Villages Covered by Cancer

Village enshrouded by cancer

In fact， "cancer village" is a kind of group disease phenomenon existed in Chinese mainland after the reform and opening up.

In November， 2013， an 8-year-old girl from Jiangsu became the youngest lung cancer patient in China. Though it was not pointed out clearly that the connection between her cancer and pollution， the doctor said it might be caused by long time inhalation of road dust.

The tragedy of the girl in Jiangsu is like a mirror which reflects the miserable cost of China's fast economic development. Constantly expanded cities， excessive use of chemical fertilizer and abused emission of pollutants by plants lead to the degradation of China's water resource that half of the rivers and lakes are seriously polluted. Because of environmental pollution， large-scale cancer disease happened in village due to drinking the untreated water emitted by upstream enterprises.

Years after the academic and media pointing out the high cancer rate of people living in contaminated areas， the ministry of environment protection of China finally for the first time admitted the existence of "cancer village" in China in February， 2013. Some experts estimated that， including the non-official statistics， there are 459 cancer villages in the main land and are expanding towards the west part of China.

"Cancer village" in some extents reflects the challenges that brought to people's survival by pollution.

In the Yangqiao Village， Guhe Town， Funing County， Yancheng City， Jiangsu， more than 20 people died of cancer due to an insecticide factory and two chemical plants there. The villagers use a wet towel to cover nose and mouth when they sleep and breed the ducks in sty not by the waterside.

The 16th team of Huanghua Zhongjie farm in Hebei is one of the "cancer village" mentioned in the Geography Distribution Research of Cancer Villages in China. Villagers complain that they never drink the water in the village long time age and all drink bottled water now.

……

The surrounding ecological environment of “cancer village” is worrying

With the continuous promotion of ecological and environmental awareness， "cancer village" is mentioned again and is of constant concern. When visiting the "cancer villages" in Hebei， Shandong， Shanxi and Anhui， it can be found that the villagers there all feel the serious situation of cancer disease. But due to the lack of authority figures， they just doubt it is the result of water pollution.

The 16th team of Huanghua Zhongjie farm in Hebei， Liuguanzhuang Village and Xinzhuangzi Villages are "cancer villages" in the Geography Distribution Research of Cancer Villages in China. The water of these villages is yellow that people dare not to drink but just wash pot and clothes with it.

Yang Zedong， Deputy General Engineer of Anhui Geology Investigation Institute and Former Director of Hydrogeological Environment Geology Survey Bureau， said that， in regions where shallow groundwater is polluted， especially along the side of river of the 5th types of inferior quality are of high incidence of cancer. This idea is agreed by Zhang Bo， Director of Shandong environment protection department. He said， all the pollution is along the river and lake side or at the former chemical industrial parks， that it is hard to restore the polluted water.

Some reported "cancer villages" have got the decrease of patients in recent years， but the living environment is still worrying. In Hezuitou Village， Shangzhou District， Shangluo City， Shanxi， from 1991 to 2003， 46 people died of cancer. During the peak season， one villager died a month and most were esophageal and gastric cancer. The number in the two years has declined. He Zhihua， party branch secretary， said， last year， two people died， and died of cancer and natural aging."

Villager Zhao Shuyuan said， in the past， the upstream was the red water flew from a paper mill as well as an alcohol plant and a metal chemical plant. Now two meters of the sand in the river is red or yellow. There are wells for drinking water. But the water from 6 meters deep of villager's own well is still turbid.

There is a fishing village called Meilin in Yongning Town， Shishi， Fujian， that has been in bad smell for over 10 years. There is a Meilin primary school， and almost every one of the school would tell you their nose feel uncomfortable and they "feel nausea and want to vomit". Out of the fence of the school， a black ditch is flowing toward a black beach near the Meilin wharf. 20 years ago， this beach could compare to the golden beach 2 kilometers away. It is the cancer that is more horrifying than bad smell. In fact， when the first sunshine came into the village in the 21st century， almost every year people had cancer or died of it. From 2008 till now， 49 people have cancer among the total population of 4600， and 35 of them died. The disaster is continuing， 5 or 6 other people get cancer and the diagnosed cancer villagers there now is 14 and 9 of them are less than 50 years old. With the constant existence of cancer， in less than 3 years， at least 16 families moved out from this once picturesque fishing village.

Was the water pollution to blame？

Due to the lack of authority figures， the number of "cancer villages" online is not unified， but most of the reports targeted the reason for high frequency of cancer to drinking water pollution. When people search the key words of "cancer village and water pollution" online， there are over 100 related websites. The citing reports of Huicong water industry network said that， the popular map of "cancer village" online has pollution of varied degrees. "Cancer villages" are mainly in the economically developed area of middle and eastern China and near cities. They have environment pollution of various degrees， especially water pollution.

All things have a source. The effluents of plants even lead to the death of trees， not to say being drinking water of human beings. Recently， CCTV exposed a cancer village in Hebei and doubted it was related to the effluents of the local pharmaceutical factory. But when reporters tried to interview， they were rejected. The workers said， "whoever says something about the factory will be fired."

Li Jinghong， Chemical Professor of Tsinghua University said that， the drinking water resource is of vital importance for human health. People's long time contact or drinking water that mutated or polluted by cancergenic substance will increase the cancer incidence of the drinking crowd.

Zheng Chunmiao， director of water resource research center of Peking University， said， the main drinking water resource of north China is underground water. "Three nitrogen" including nitrite， nitrate and ammonia nitrogen and heavy metals are common pollutants of underground water currently and longtime drinking of it will cause cancer.

On June， 25th， 2013， the 8 years' studying results of the team of experts of Centers for Disease Control of China， the most authoritative institution of disease prevention and control， -- the digital version of Atlas of Huai River Basin Water Environment and the Digestive Tract Tumor Death was published and for the first time proved the direct connection between high cancer incidence and water pollution.

According to the survey， 55% monitoring points of China's underground water are in poor level and mainly in Gansu， Qinghai， Zhejiang， Fujian， Jiangxi， Hubei， Hunan and Yunnan. Though underground water belongs to renewable resource， the renewal of it is slow and cannot be reversed in a long time. The pollution of it starts to expand from dots to surface， from city to outskirts and from one-way pollution to combined pollution. From 2002 to 2005， the polluted areas of underground water of China's water system all exceed 30% and mainly in Tai Lake， Huai River and Hai River. The pollutant distribution changes from inorganic to organic with increasingly serious harm. The polluted underground water leads to the frequent existence of "cancer villages".

Must face up to the groundwater resource crisis

Villagers of "cancer village" hope to improve their ecological environment as soon as possible and figure out the connection between diseases and insecure drinking water. Less developed area should not be the transferred place of pollution.

Reporter of Economic Information Daily found in the secret inquires at Zhongjie farm that， several villages are at the surrounding area of a chemical industry park with dozens of chemical plants and within the site there are bad smells constantly. Villagers of nearby villages said， all the plants were transferred here when eliminated by other provinces and cities. The oldest factory here is over ten years and they all think the water is polluted by these chemical plants.

"It always says to build new villages. It is the air and water that is most important for ordinary people. If this cannot be guaranteed， then how would we talk about new villages！" A villager called Sun in Xinzhuangzi said， "My three children all drink purified water and I worry polluted water may affect their ability to have children. Please reflect to the government to move away all these chemical plants！"

The related statistics show that， there are about 30 million people in 10 provinces at the north part of Huai River are drinking high nitrate water; there are 360 million people in rural area cannot have standard drinking water. The stunning statistics reveal the underground water crisis that has always been in "hidden" status.

When asked to improve the living environment， some villagers hope related departments can send people to "cancer villagers" to investigate water quality and disease and make scientific evaluation of the environment there. So that it would not be in the weird circle of media's report first and then the government's denial.

Hereby， one of the chief culprits of "cancer village" is water pollution and the direct association is pollution discharge enterprises. But the governments which introduced and approved these enterprises are also related. The affected citizens have to bite the bullet and accept the fact of pollution. So it needs to use legal and administrative methods to establish responsibility tracing mechanism. On the basis of full investigation， it needs to firmly shut down polluting enterprises and trace the accountability of the related policy and responsible persons. It also needs to actively take effective measures， carry out ecological recovery， guarantee the sustainable use of water resource and safeguard human drinking water health.