*In 1992, Thanislas, 50, died of face cancer. He couldn’t eat or drink because he had a hole in his jaw, recalls his daughter Jayarani Amal Raj with horror.
*Two years ago, 32-year-old Antony Adimai died of leukaemia. His wife Jacqueline Ruby is trying to fend for herself and her two children. She says her husband’s treatment cost nearly Rs 2 lakh and she is still settling the debt.
* Seven months ago, Maria Goratty, 36, was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour and underwent a surgery. Her husband, Supriayans, 45, has already spent Rs 3.5 lakh, sometimes spending as much as Rs 13,000 on medicines.
* Truck driver Wilfred Lasar, 44, died four months ago of cancer in the stomach. The family spent Rs 6 lakh on his treatment. Now wife Maria Selvi has no money to pay the children’s—Shanmathi (14) and Stanley Jose (11)—school fees. The family didn’t even have the money to celebrate Easter.

At ground zero, reality is frightening. Periyavilai is like any other hamlet in Tamil Nadu’s picturesque Kanyakumari district that survives on fishing. But the stench of fish and seaweed hides a dark fact. There is an unusually high incidence of people dying of cancer or suffering from the disease.

The villagers blame it all on the Indian Rare Earths Ltd. (IRE), the Mumbai-based PSU which mines for monazite, a rich thorium-based ore, at Periyavilai. They also accuse it of not providing them protective work gear as they “scrape or dig” the sand from the shore.

... contd.