00:00For most of her life, 59-year-old farmer Tip Kamlu has irrigated her fields in northern Thailand with the waters from the Kok River.
00:08It flows down from neighboring Myanmar before joining with the Mekong River that cuts through Southeast Asia.
00:14But authorities in April warned residents to stop using water from the Kok because of contamination concerns.
00:20Since then, Tip has been using groundwater to grow pumpkins, garlic, sweet corn and okra.
00:30It's like half of me has died.
00:35When the river became like this, we couldn't use the river water, the water crops, or for anything.
00:43If we use it on vegetables, people won't buy them. I just want those responsible to help take care of it.
00:51The contamination isn't just hurting farmers, it's devastating fishing communities too.
00:5648-year-old Sawak Kewadam, an artisanal fisherman from the riverside village of Ban Sob Kok, says he can barely catch fish from the river.
01:08If the Mekong River could speak, it would say it wants to cry.
01:12The water keeps rising and falling. There are no fish.
01:15The river would cry and so would we. We can't catch any fish. Where have they gone?
01:27I just cast my net across half the Mekong and didn't catch a single one.
01:32Before, there were always some. Now, where have they gone?
01:35A study by the U.S.-based Dimson Center found mines across mainland Southeast Asia, many illegal and unregulated, could be releasing deadly chemicals like cyanide and mercury into rivers.
01:48Brian Eiler is a senior fellow at the center.
01:50This story started with the impacts of only two rare earth mines on the Kok River system.
01:58Those rare earth mines were in Myanmar.
02:00Our research is showing that there are scores of tributaries of major rivers like the Mekong, the Sawin, the Irrawaddy, and rivers in Vietnam that are likely highly contaminated.
02:12And this story is not known.
02:14So the extensiveness in the scale is something that's striking to me.
02:17The emergence of new China-backed rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar initially set off concerns among researchers over the danger of downstream pollution along the Kok River.
02:27Tanapon Fernrat is from the Thailand Science Research and Innovation.
02:31The arsenic that appears in the water comes along with rare earth minerals.
02:35These rare earth elements are also associated with radioactive elements.
02:39Their concentrations rise and fall together.
02:41It has only been two years since the rise of rare earth and gold mining in Myanmar at a Kok River's source.
02:46If this continues, nature will no longer be able to resist it, and contamination levels will rise sharply.
02:51From Myanmar's mining sites, raw materials are shipped to China for processing.
02:56Beijing dominates global rare earth production and has used these minerals as leverage in its trade war with the U.S.
03:02In response to questions from Reuters, China's foreign ministry said it was not aware of the situation on river pollution.
03:08Meanwhile, Thailand has set up three new task forces to coordinate international cooperation, monitor health impacts, and secure alternative water sources for communities along affected rivers.
03:19Beijing has been organized in thections of various domain laws as well.
03:20Beijing flies,ÙŽ lo
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