VietNamNet Bridge – The people in Duy Tan commune of Kinh Mon district in Hai Duong province laid a siege to a chemical plant in the locality for one month, because they believed the plant was the culprit that caused the serious pollution to the environment and the death of tens of local people. Local newspapers call it the “Kinh Mon crushing environmental disaster.”

A cement factory in Duy Tan.

Duy Tan commune, the land rich in limestone natural resources, has been known as a big building material production area, where a lot of cement, lime kilns and stone crushing plants are located.

Here on a range of land along the backbone road of the commune, four cement plants of Phu Tan, Thanh Cong, Trung Hai and Duyen Linh have been standing in series from the Chau Xa to Trai Xanh hamlets.

The hamlets with small houses look too small among the imposing kilns, machines, and concrete production lines with the chimneys from which dark smoke ejects to the sky.

Located just several meters from the cement plant, Nguyen Van Hanh’s house has been silently shut the whole day: Hanh and his family members want to escape the dust.

“I try to clean the house any time I can. But the house is still dusty. We meet the dust everywhere, in the kitchen, in the bedroom,” Hanh said.

“We have been living in dust and smoke for the last ten years, since the day the cement and lime kilns arose,” he added.

According to Ngo Van Hu, Head of the Trai Xanh Hamlet, the cement plants here are all blast furnaces, using backward technologies; therefore, they cause serious pollution.

Hu said the thick smoke and dust became unbearable to local people one day in 2005 and 2006, when they decided to block the way to the cement plant, stopping all the vehicles to prevent them from carrying materials and goods to the plant.

After the events, the local authorities intervened in the case and forced the cement plants to install dust filtration systems. The situation has been improved a little, but local people still have been living in dust and smoke since then.

Since the smoke and dust from cement plants attack residential quarters, people have no clean water to use.

In the past, they lived on the rain water. But nowadays, they dare not use the “water from the sky” any more. Most of the people have to travel several kilometers to get water from a well on the Nhiem mountain area. Here the water is expensive, about VND50-60,000 per cubic meter.

The Chau Xa Hamlet’s cemetery is located between the factory’s chimneys. Pointing to some new graves, Hanh in Chau Xa Hamlet said the people died of cancer. “However,” he said, “the number of people dying of cancer in Chau Xa hamlet is just modest if compared with Trai Xanh hamlet.”

Hoang Van Khang, 61, is one of the 10 people in the hamlet who are undergoing the treatment for cancer. “Four have died so far because of cancer. Tens of people have died of cancer over the last 10 years,” he said.

A report of the local healthcare center showed that since 2003, Duy Tan commune has had 70 people dying of cancer, mostly from Trai Xanh hamlet.

Tien Phong