Rare earth mining is poisoning Mekong River tributaries, threatening 'the world's kitchen'

CHIANG SAEN, Thailand (AP) — Perched on the bow of his long-tail fishing boat, 75-year-old Sukjai Yana untangled a handful of small fish from his net, disappointed by his catch and fretting over whether he can sell them.

Some days Yana earns nothing: demand for fish is falling due to worries over contamination of the Mekong River and its tributaries by toxic runoff from rare earth mines upstream that is threatening millions who rely on those waters for farms and fisheries.

Chiang Saen, a fishing hub in northern Thailand, has been Yana's family's home for decades. “I don’t know where else I’d go,” he said.

Yana is one of 70 million people in mainland Southeast Asia who depend on the nearly 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) Mekong River. Rising demand for rare earth materials is driving an unregulated mining boom centered in war-torn Myanmar, to the west, that is spreading to Laos, in the east.

The Mekong has long faced mounting pressures, from plastic pollution to hydropower dams hemming it upstream and sand mining devouring its banks. But experts warn that the toxic runoff from the mines could pose an existential threat.

Exposure to heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium raises risks of cancer, organ failure and developmental harm, especially for children and pregnant women.

Thailand is bearing the brunt of the mining boom as such toxins imperil its global food exports — from bags of rice in U.S. supermarkets to edamame snacks served in Japan and garlic used in Malaysian kitchens. Responses remain local and limited, while smuggling and Myanmar’s civil war complicate regional fixes, raising concerns for downstream Cambodia and Vietnam.

Agriculture is the backbone of Southeast Asia’s economies, said Suebsakun Kidnukorn of Mae Fah Luang University in northern Thailand's Chiang Rai, warning that rare earth mines are destroying “the world’s kitchen.”

While cutting banana bunches on a farm in the hilly Thai village of Tha Ton, 63-year-old Lah Boonruang taps his fingers to count the toxin-exposed crops he harvests — rice, garlic, corn, onion, mangoes and bananas.

He irrigates his fields with water from the Kok River, a Mekong tributary that flows into Thailand from Myanmar and is laden with toxins.

“Everyone is afraid of the toxins," he said. “If we can't export, a farmer is the first to die.”

Thailand is one of the world's top rice exporters along with India and Vietnam. It exported over $10 billion worth of rice and fruits in 2024, according to trade figures that rank the U.S. as the top rice importer.

“Our worry is that toxins accumulate in the rice we export. This would make our rice farming industry, which is our culture, collapse,” said Niwat Roykaew, founder of the environmental institute The Mekong School in northern Thailand's Chiang Khong.

Thai scientists have found elevated heavy metal pollution in other Mekong tributaries, like the Sai and Ruak rivers.

The Mekong starts in China and flows through five Southeast Asian nations before emptying into the sea. Millions rely on fish from the Mekong Basin for protein.

Warnings to ethnic minorities in the hills of northern Thailand to avoid using river water are painful for the Lahu, who are famed as fisher people, said Sela Lipo, 56, a Lahu elder.

“The Lahu’s way of life is always with a river," he said. "The contaminated river has cut off our lifeline.”

Thailand's government says it has little leverage against mining operations across the border in strife-torn Myanmar and Laos. The Thai response has also been constrained by limited expertise, information and funds, said Aweera Pakkamart of Thailand's Pollution Control Department.

Instead, public universities, local governments and regional organizations like the Mekong River Commission, have mainly focused on monitoring levels of heavy metals and educating communities about risks.

Recent water, fish and sediment samples from Mekong tributaries had high levels of dangerous heavy metals, such as arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium, from rare earth mining, said Warakorn Maneechuket, a researcher at Thailand’s Naresuan University.

In a lab, she uses a scalpel to point out tell-tale signs of contamination — tumor-like growths, discolored scales, and unusual eye coloration — before dissecting a catfish caught from the Kok River.

The accumulation of heavy metals is insidious. Arsenic can cause organ failure. Mercury damages the nervous system. Lead impairs cognition and cadmium harms the kidneys.

To raise awareness of health risks, Tanapon Phenrat of Naresuan University helped develop a smartphone fish safety app, training fishers in Chiang Saen to use it to identify and upload images of suspicious fish. Building a citizen-science database for northern Thailand can help quantify the scale and spread of contamination, he said.

“Each and every sample is very important,” he said.

The ubiquity of rare earth elements means demand keeps rising.

Rare earths are vital to modern technology, from smartphones and electric vehicles to missiles and jets. Despite the name, they are common. It is the costly mining and complex refining process, concentrated in China, that makes them scarce.

The U.S.-based Stimson Center has used satellite photo analysis to identify nearly 800 suspected unregulated rare earth and other mining sites along Mekong tributaries in Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.

Many in Myanmar are in areas of active fighting. The war has driven a "diversification of mines” geographically, according to Regan Kwan of The Stimson Center, who has tracked expansion of mining to 26 sites along rivers in Laos.

Rare earths are mined by digging up rock or washing chemicals through soil to extract the minerals, creating toxic waste. The physical footprint of this process is recognizable in satellite data, Kwan said.

Myanmar is China’s leading supplier of heavy rare earths, exporting more than $4.2 billion worth of such materials to China between 2017 and 2024, mostly after a miliary takeover in 2021.

U.S. President Donald Trump made securing America's supply of critical minerals and rare earths a key foreign policy objective. Used in fighter jets like the F-35, submarines, Tomahawk missiles, radar systems and smart bombs, according to the U.S. government, the need for more supplies is growing as the U.S. replenishes and expands military stockpiles drawn down by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

This is bad news for the river that sustains mainland Southeast Asia.

Conflicts in last century — which include the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge genocide — were the most devastating for the Mekong region, but toxic runoff ranks a close second, said Brian Eyler of the Stimson Center, who called it an "atomic bomb” for river basin.

It's far more damaging than other threats like large dams and "it is not stopping.”

Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam. Freelance reporter Ladawan Sondak contributed to this report.

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Field workers harvest garlic from a farm on the banks of the Kok River in Tha Ton, Thailand, on Feb. 21. (AP Photo/Anton L. Delgado)

Morning mist blankets the Thai village of Tha Ton, where the Kok River enters Thailand from Myanmar, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Anton L. Delgado)

Researcher Warakorn Maneechuket dissects a fish at a Naresuan University laboratory in Phitsanulok, Thailand, on Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Anton L. Delgado)

Farmer Lah Boonruang takes a break from harvesting banana bushels on a farm in Tha Ton, Thailand, on Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Anton L. Delgado)

Fisherman Sukjai Yana untangles his net while docked on the Kok River in Chiang Saen, Thailand, on Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Anton L. Delgado)

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Officials battling two large wildfires that have destroyed dozens of homes in southern Georgia warned Tuesday that firefighters are bracing for a prolonged battle even after weekend rains gave a big boost to containment efforts.

“A little bit of rain is going to help us, but it’s not going to get us out of this situation,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told a news conference after touring the fire areas Tuesday. “We’re going to be in this for a while.”

A fire that has burned roughly 35 square miles (90 square kilometers) and destroyed more than 80 homes in rural Brantley County was 32% contained, the command team overseeing the fire response said Tuesday. That's up from just 6% containment reported Monday.

Rains on Sunday slowed the fire enough to give crews an opening to widen containment lines along the perimeter and to snuff out some smoldering pockets, said Johnny Sabo, director of the Georgia Forestry Commission.

“As that number increases, our confidence at holding it in that footprint increases,” Sabo told reporters. He added: “We have a long way to go. I just want to stress that.”

A larger wildfire in sparsely populated Clinch and Echols counties has charred more than 50 square miles (130 square kilometers) at the Georgia-Florida line. Sabo said crews have held that fire to roughly the same footprint for four days. It was considered 23% contained Tuesday.

One home and several dozen sheds and other smaller structures were destroyed, said Don Thomas, a Georgia Forestry Commission spokesperson.

An unusually large number of wildfires are burning this spring across the Southeast. Scientists say the threat of fire has been amplified by a combination of extreme drought, gusty winds, climate change and dead trees and other vegetation.

No fire injuries or deaths have been reported in Georgia. A volunteer firefighter in Nassau County, Florida, died last week after suffering an unspecified medical emergency while suppressing a brush fire.

Progress made against the Brantley County blaze prompted local officials to lift evacuation orders Monday for roughly 1,500 people who had fled their homes. About 2,500 remained displaced, said Susan Heisey, a spokesperson for the fire command team.

Local officials have warned people returning home to be prepared to evacuate again if necessary.

Both Georgia fires ignited as the state's worst drought in two decades has rendered vast pine forests and swampy lowlands tinder dry and highly combustible.

Investigators concluded the Brantley County fire began April 20 when a foil balloon touched a power line, creating an electrical arc that set the ground ablaze. The fire in Clinch and Echols counties started April 18 by a falling spark as a man was welding a gate, according to state officials.

Forecasts showed a high chance of more rain over the fires this weekend. There's also a possibility of thunderstorms, which can produce lightning that causes new fires.

Officials haven't said how long the Georgia fires might burn, only that it will take significant rainfall to extinguish them.

Sabo noted that a vast fire sparked by lightning in the nearby Okefenokee Swamp in 2011 burned for just shy of a year.

Gov. Brian Kemp speaks on the fires in Southeast Georgia, Friday, April 24, 2026, in Waycross, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Blackened trees and charred palmetto fronds lined the shoulders of U.S. 82 on Monday, April 27, 2026 in Brantley County, Ga., as smoke poured from the ground in several spots beside the highway. (AP Photo/Russ Bynum)