At least 60 minors suffered symptoms of poisoning this Tuesday (14) due to a new episode of gas emission in the city of Quintero, an area known as “Chilean Chernobyl” since a chemical spill left 1,700 affected. , in 2018.
The mayor of the municipality, Maurício Carrasco, told the local press that those affected are mainly students from schools and day care centers in the coastal city, where more than 15 industries are located, including thermoelectric plants, oil companies and copper treatment plants.
“In the morning there were 17, then 40, but now with the day care centers, we have already passed 60 children with some discomfort and I hope it does not continue to increase”, said the mayor of the city, where last week at least another 150 people were affected by a similar episode.
At the time, the Fire Department confirmed the presence of hydrogen sulfide in the air “in concentrations that could be harmful”, which forced the evacuation of two day care centers, said Carrasco.
Quintero and the neighboring city of Puchuncaví – 150 kilometers west of Santiago – form one of the country’s five “sacrifice zones”, spaces full of industrial activity with serious consequences for the health of its inhabitants and the environment.
Enveloped daily in a toxic cloud of smog, which causes acid rain, the inhabitants of these cities get sick up to four times more than the national average, with respiratory, cardiovascular and malignant tumors, according to a study by the Catholic University and the Sustainable Chile Foundation.
After several days of complaints about possible poisoning, the government issued a health alert last Saturday for the two locations and guaranteed that the closure of factories and industrial facilities would take priority over that of schools.
They also reported that the Ministry of Health will start studies from July to determine the impact of heavy metals on people living in the affected area and a health repair program for people in the area who are recovering.
Days earlier, environmental authorities had already ordered six industries to reduce their activities, with specific restrictions on state-owned mining company Codelco and electric company AES Gener.
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