18.Village of Cancer（234）

Village of Cancer

 Yesterday, a person with cancer passed away at our hospital.

 This person came from a village that's 100 miles away. In the last five years, thirty people from there have died because of cancer.

 The Government sent specialists to check how people are living in that village.

 The check showed that the water underground in the village is really dirty.

 The air there smells bad and is full of dangerous stuff, and even the fish in the ponds have died.

 The dirtiness came from a mine that started working 8 years ago. About five years ago, people started getting cancer.

 Because they spent a lot of money on doctors and medicine, the people in the village have become very poor. Many families owe a lot of money.

 So, some of them left the village, even though their families had lived there for a long time.

 The village became the focus of news stories in newspapers and on TV.

 Because of this, a really important government person also went to check out the village.

 The court said the mine owner has to pay a lot of money to the villagers as a way of saying sorry, and they also made the mine stop working.

 They also put in pipes to bring clean water to the village.

 The village, which was almost ruined by the dirty stuff underground, is starting to get better.