Over Chile’s coastal town of Quintero, a poison floating cloud, the residents complain of respiratory problems, dizziness and vomiting. The polluters are the industrial corporations that drive the economic growth of the country.
Colorful fishing boats drifting peacefully in the waters of the Bay of Quintero and Puchuncaví in the coast of Chile, while in the Background dark clouds of Industrial chimneys puffing. About 40,000 people live here, most of tourism and fisheries.But the beaches are empty, many fishermen have lost their jobs.
“The industry has done much harm. The dealer no longer want to buy our fish because of the pollution by heavy metals,” says Claudio Hernández, a fisherman and Union leader of the fishermen’s Union S24 in Quintero. The Union was created in 2014 after an accident, the state-owned petroleum company Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP) more than 30,000 gallons of Oil into the sea poured.
The companies deny any responsibility
ENAP is one of the companies that have settled since the onset of industrialization in the 1960s in the coastal zone and the ow for the air, water and soil will be made pollution is responsible. Including coal – fired power plants, chemical plants and petroleum processing facilities-among them the state-owned copper mining company Codelco and oil company Copec.
“We, the workers, are the first to suffer from the poisoning,” says the trade unionist, Alejandro Ochoa.
Alejandro Ochoa is working for a contract company ENAP and is a member of the industrial Union of the Bay of Quintero-Puchuncaví. “We, the workers, are the first to suffer from the poisoning. The companies assume no responsibility for their workers and for the residents”, complains.
The Sacrifice Zone
The Chileans call the Region the “Zona de Sacrificio”, the “victim zone” because she was left without consideration on the population and the environment of the industry and thus for the economic growth of the country was sacrificed. “The companies make more and more profit and the residents are getting poorer”, writes Sebastian Santos, speaker of the municipal Council of the Quintero-Puchuncaví. “The pollution of the environment, the company destroyed the tourism and the fisheries.”
The Council therefore calls for state regulation of industrial enterprises, as well as a study of the entire population, the exact causes of the poisoning.
Pupils suffer from dizziness and vomiting
21. August 2018, the air pollution reached in Quintero and Puchuncaví a new peak. The 17-year-old student Tayra Pizarro recalls. “Many of my classmates had a headache, have vomited and passed out. I felt nauseous and dizzy, but I didn’t know why. Then the teacher told us, that a poisoning by the toxic gas was the cause,” she says. Over 50 students and teachers were admitted on that day to the hospital. Then, the school has suspended classes for about a month.
A report by the Chilean Ministry of health estimated that between 21. September and the 18. October of this year, 1398 persons due to poisoning by gases in the local hospitals to be treated.
Most children and young people, whose immune system is weaker than that of adults are affected. It is also the students who protested in the following weeks, in the streets and the attention of the Chilean Shun they were.
After the poisoning aside Taya Pizarro and her classmates were not allowed to go inside a month to the school.
“The health of the children of the economy to be sacrificed”
Although the air pollution values are for over 50 years, is very high in the Region, was not riding the hospital staff on the poisoning is over. María Araya is President of the Advisory Board of the hospital Adriana Cousiño de Quintero and advocates for the interests of the patients. “The hospital had no specialists, only General practitioners. The Ministry of health knew that, and it has been deaf. You’ve waited so long, until the Situation escalated and they could no longer ignore it,” complained they.
The government sent a Team of experts to Quintero and Puchuncaví, which introduced over 120 different gases in the air. One of which is methyl chloroform, which is banned for 2015 in Chile. The contact with methyl chloroform caused the same symptoms, of which the inhabitants complain in Quintero: dizziness, headache, vomiting.
Many clues lead to the chemical group Oxyquim to sell methyl chloroform long under its chemical name trichloroethane. The company denies any responsibility for the poisoning. “We are fighting against the economy of the country. The state does not respond, because otherwise the whole economy would collapse. The health of our children for the economy of the country and made sacrifices,” says Araya.
Pollution levels exceed international Standards
Birgit Gerstenberg, representative of the United Nations in South America, visited the Region and expressed concern about the impact of pollution on the population. She noted that the state “is obliged to protect the human rights legislation and institutions.”
María Araya, President of the Advisory Board of the local hospital, wants to fight on: “We do not give up”.”
The International health organization warned in a statement before the high presence of arsenic in the coastal region, which is absorbed by the water and causes cancer. The average arsenic concentration in Quintero and Puchuncaví is a study of the Chilean Ministry of health, according to 23 Times higher than it is allowed in the European Union. In Chile there are no regulations.
15. November protested the people in Chile against the environmental pollution in the Quintero-Puchuncaví, in solidarity with the affected population. Maria Araya has not participated in the protests because she’s afraid of. She had been followed and have received threatening phone calls. “The people who open the mouth, to be Silenced,” she says.
On 4. In October, the 27-year-old fisherman and Union leader Alejandro Castro, under unexplained circumstances, lost their lives. “It’s not easy,” says Maria Araya, “but we must continue to fight. The people who have the money for it, moving away from Quintero. The simple people have to stay here and suffer. They want us to quiet down. But we do not give up”.