The disaster in Guyana began in the early morning hours of Saturday August 19: at a Canadian-owned gold mine, a red, poisonous sludge erupted through a breach in an earthen dam which was holding back a waste pond. Before the leak could be plugged, 1.2 billion litres of cyanide and heavy metal-laced effluent would pour into the Omai river, a narrow tributary leading to Guyana`s main waterway – the Essequibo river.

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