Liunfen (China, 3 million inhabitants) can claim the title of the “most polluted city in the world”: located in a gigantic industrial complex, its streets are flooded with the waste produced by the combustion of 50 million tonnes of coal per year. The layer of black dust on its sidewalks is so thick that you leave footprints on the ground.
It is well-known that China is now on its way to collect all world records, including the negative ones: it has been predicted that by 2009 China will surpass the USA in the production of greenhouse gasses. Watercourse pollution, the melting of Himalayan glaciers and desertification are threatening 400 million people. Yet, this Asian giant is still an amateur compared to western countries: one Chinese person produces 3.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, compared with 9.6 for a British person or 20 for an American. The inhabitants of the north-west part of the world are still the top polluters.
Of course, on the list of the most polluted cities in the world you are sure to find Chernobyl, which is still dealing with the consequences of the explosion of reactor number 4, back in 1986.
Less well known is the Kyrgyz city of Mailuu-Suu, once the site of a former USSR uranium plant, today turned into huge dump for radioactive waste: over 1 million cubic metres of radioactive material is stored in the area. 23,000 people are at immediate risk but, potentially, the number of victims among the population in the event of an accident or radiation leak is incalculable.
According to the Blacksmith Institute (a non-profit organisation founded and directed by Richard Fuller) the following is the list of the cities from hell. The list includes those place names which today are known as real poisonous waste dumps:
Haina (Dominican Republic),
Ranipet (India),
La Oroya (Peru),
Dzerzhinsk (Russia),
Rudnaya Pristan (Russia),
Kabwe (Zambia).
The majority of these are not threatened by particulate matter, CO2 emissions or combustion residues, but by much more insidious substances, like heavy metals released into the environment by industry or mining: mainly lead, followed by cadmium, mercury, zinc, strontium and arsenic.
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