The Price of Gold
The glowing hues of dusk bathe a mud-splattered gold miner in the border province of Manica. The area draws scores of workers from neighboring Zimbabwe who pan for traces of the precious metal in turbid waters.
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| Men pan for gold in a small scale mine. |
Zimbabweans risking it all for a better life
Exhausted and caked in mud, they plough wearily on, searching toxic water for traces of gold. Some look west from where they fled, across the border to Zimbabwe towards home. There, the life of miners are even harder. Here in Mozambique, at least, there are no soldiers standing over them with assault rifles.
Whole families have crossed the border to join the hunt for treasure. Zimbabwe has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world. The discovery of gold can literally save lives. But the search destroys lives too. The diggers handle toxic mercury to extract gold from the red earth. They risk suffocation at the bottom of fragile mine shafts that collapse burying occupants all too often.
A few will find enough gold to change their lives, but most will not. Many will become ill and some will pay the ultimate price in their search for gold.
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| 10 meters below ground a man digs out earth he hopes will contain gold. Many miners have been killed when the shafts collapse. |
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| Miners carry sacks of soil they hope will contain gold. |
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| A miner holds a two hundred Metical bank note (about US $5) containing a few grains of gold dug from a small scale gold mine. |
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| A father and child living on the site of a small scale gold mine. |
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| A miner has his face spattered with mud from working in a small scale gold mine. |
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| Men pan for gold in a small scale mine. |
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| Men pan for gold in a small scale mine. |
Mining in South Africa has been the main driving force behind the history and development of Africa's most advanced and richest economy. Large scale and profitable mining started with the discovery of a diamond on the banks of the Orange River in 1867 by Erasmus Jacobs and the subsequent discovery and exploitation of the Kimberley pipes a few years later. Gold rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the subsequent rapid development of the gold field there, the biggest of them all.
Diamond and gold production may now be well down from their peaks, though South Africa is still no. 2 in gold but South Africa remains a cornucopia of mineral riches. It is the world's largest producer of chrome, manganese, platinum, vanadium and vermiculite. It is the second largest producer of ilmenite, palladium, rutile and zirconium. It is also the world's third largest coal exporter
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| Men pan for gold in a small scale mine. |
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| Panning for gold in a small scale mine. |
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| Men pan for gold in a small scale mine. |
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| Men dig for gold in a small scale mine. |
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| A miner holds a globule of mercury, which is used to extract gold. Handling mercury makes the job extremely hazardous. |
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| A community of Zimbabweans live and mine gold in the hills on the other side of the border in Mozambique. |
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| The digging up of so much earth pollutes local rivers and kills fish in the waterways. |
Source: www.robinhammond.co.uk
Photographer: Robin Hammond
Information: Wikipedia
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