This is what the residents of the small village of Huangmenying believe. Their river, a dumping ground for industries "protected" by local officials, is a tributary of the Huai river, which supplies water to one-sixth of the Chinese population.
Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) "The water of our streams cause cancer." So say residents of Huangmenying, a village of around 2,500 residents in the central province of Henan, which has a very high cancer rate. The village gets water from Shaying, a tributary of the Huai river, which could lay claim to being China's most polluted river.
Kong Heqin, a 30-year-old woman suffers from cancer of the throat and intestine. Despite three operations, tumours are still growing in her belly, but she has no more money for treatment. "I have spent 70,000 yuan (around 7,000 euros) on three operations and I can't borrow any more," Kong said. "My husband said we could sell our older son to another couple looking to adopt to raise the money, but I refused. I would rather die than sell my son."
Kong's husband, like many men from the village, has gone to Shanghai to earn money as a labourer, but he barely earns enough to cover the basic needs for his wife and their two sons.
Huo Daishan, a local activist, says that 118 people have died of cancer since 1990. He says the river is a dumping ground for tanneries, paper mills and other factories, which all enjoy protection from local officials: "Once the factories are able to get the local government involved and combine their interests, it becomes hard to get a grip on the situation. That is why it's been so hard to solve this problem in recent years."
According to Huo, the factories often belong to foreign companies and they were banned by foreign governments because of their pollution. "A lot of industries are not accepting responsibility," he said. "They refuse to clean up their waste."
Official sources say 90 percent of the rivers that flow through Chinese urban centres are severely polluted, and some 300 million people nationwide have no access to clean water. Beijing has spent around 60 billion yuan (around six billion euros) to clean the Huai river which supplies water to one-sixth of the population but last spring, it admitted that pollution remained at "serious levels".
Huo said that on its worst days, the water of the Huai river was "black, like soy sauce, with a lot of foam. It has a noxious smell." Tests have shown the Huai contains dangerous amounts of metals, ammonia and oils.
In other areas of China, the people came out in protest against polluted factories and "indifferent" public officials. But Huangmenying residents have not rebelled: those who can escape, the others spent the little money they have to buy bottled drinking water.