Hill of death

During a film shoot at the beautiful Roro hill in Jharkhand’s Chaibasa district, the villain takes out his gun to kill a young man. The moment he shoots, onlooker Rango Deogam bursts into laughter and yells at the camera crew, “You are shooting a death scene on the hill of death.”

The shoot is stopped because of his outrageous act and Deogam is escorted out when he starts coughing blood.

The 65-year-old resident of the Roro village then clears his throat and says, “That’s death.” Deogam is not the only one in the Roro village who is coughing blood. An estimated 200 people in the 14 villages near the Roro hill are dying slowly from a lung disease called abestosis because of an abandoned crysotile asbestos mine in the area. “The exact number of the victims can only be known after an extensive medical camp is held in the affected villages,” says Punit Minz, convener of Bindrai Institute for Research Study and Action (BIRSA), a non-profit that has been working in the area for the past decade to educate the residents about the problems with asbestos.

http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/hill-death