By Antony Sguazzin and Londell Phumi Ramalepe
In Pullens Hope, your eyes itch and your nose clogs. It’s easy to figure out why.
On the right side of the main street of the dilapidated village east of Johannesburg is a fenced-off electricity substation with a red sign warning of pollutants. On the left, a power plant belches emissions from burning coal into the air. Both are owned by Eskom.
Pullens Hope has doomed Rita Phoku’s family, she says. For decades, she lived between a storage site for Eskom’s burnt-coal waste and a coal-mine complex. Four of her five children suffer from asthma and other respiratory illnesses, while her 23-year-old daughter, Prudence, died of cancer of the lungs and respiratory tract. Her sister, who lived nearby, suffered repeated miscarriages and died of respiratory illness. All told, Phoku says, she has lost as many as nine family members to respiratory-related diseases. Read more…
