Photographer Souvid Datta’s series China: The Human Price of Pollution exposes the life-threatening consequences of China’s rapid growth.
China's pollution causes an estimated 3.5 million deaths each year. Earlier this year, concentrated levels of pollutants from Beijing's 200 coal-fired power plants reached 40 times what the World Health Organization deems safe. Disease rates in rural areas near chemical, pharmaceutical, or power plants hit five times the national average.
In February last year, China finally acknowledged the epidemic of these "Cancer Villages" and allocated $350 billion to help relieve air and water contamination. The following month, Premier Li Keqiang declared an all-out "war on China's pollution."
For 30 years, China's rapid economic growth has been laced with corruption and negligence; its politics with censorship. But now, the human price of China's pollution crisis can no longer be ignored.
"The Shuogang group steel factory on the outskirts of Beijing. Despite the government promising to close all major polluting factories within city limits following the 2008 Olympics, several are still operating behind closed doors. At dawn every day the factory waste-water pipe illegally spews hazardous chemicals into a local dried up lake. The accumulated green and brown deposits contain poisonous heavy metal deposits which are visible here."
Souvid Datta / souvid.org
"Jamyang is originally from a small town in inner Mongolia. She moved to Beijing following the desertification of her local arable land. Her youngest son died of colon cancer in 2010 as a result of chromium poisoning from a waste dumping site near their village, and her husband committed suicide subsequently. She now lives in tiny slum accommodations on the outskirts of Beijing with her elder son, both struggling to work as street vendors and rag pickers. She is one of China's growing generation of eco-migrants."
Souvid Datta / souvid.org
"A worker peers out from beneath the miniature scale model of Beijing's vast central districts at the National City Planning Museum, while developers have a discussion in the background. Beijing's population has risen from 11 million to more than 20 million since 2000. As the world's second most populated country with ferocious economic ambition and growth, the effective, sustainable planning of urban development lies at the heart of China's future."
Souvid Datta / souvid.org
