Kyrgyzstan

Uranium Mining in Mailuu Suu

Tanya Sarancha

I moved to Mailuu Suu with my family when I was 11 years old. My brother-in-law had discovered the town after the war and wrote us an exciting letter explaining that he had found a beautiful town. He described the town as ‘a dream'. I remember arriving in the town. All of the buildings and town infrastructure were new. The mountains were covered in high grasses and trees. My brother-in-law was right, it was a beautiful town.

The uranium mine was the sole purpose of constructing this town in the 1940's and everyone worked there. Before that time there were only a handful of nomadic people that lived throughout the valley. The population of the town grew gradually and was full of people from St Petersburg and Moscow . People in the town had a good life, with salaries and good food. Local people were happy during those times, while people throughout the rest of the Soviet Union were suffering the consequences of the war.

At the time, no one thought of the consequences of the mine. We thought that the mine was managed well, the site was monitored and mine tailings were maintained. It wasn't perfect though, and in 1958 there was a huge landslide that was triggered by the spring rains. One of the tailing sites collapsed and spilled into the river. This catastrophe killed almost 200 people in the town.

Today, the Kyrgyz Government does not spend money in monitoring and maintaining the tailing sites. It is believed that gas is leaching out through the soil and that local people are stealing wire from fences that prevent humans and animals from accessing the sites. Now people are walking over the contaminated sites and cows are grazing on the grasses.

or 20 years nothing has been done about managing this disaster. If you go to some places around the town you can see the contamination in the soil. The grass is yellow and covered with a toxic dust. When it rains, the dust is washed straight into the river. It is scary to think that I eat the meat and drink the milk from the animals that graze on the grass and drink the water from the river of this town.