42-year-old Gob Khodkham, a resident of Thaton’s Kaeng Sai Mool patch village, who had some rashes developed on his skin in April, shows a photo of the rashes on his mobile phone. Mr. Gob was among the first group of residents in the community, who had unusual symptoms developed after being in contact with the Kok River, but did not get immediate testing by public health officials. It wasn't until mid-August that he got his health checked. Mr. Gob just asked; Why did he have to ask for the testing from the officials instead of them quickly performing the testing for him in the first place. Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

Front Page Photo Essay

PHOTO ESSAY: Living in Fear

By Piyaporn W. / October 17, 2025
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Local residents living along the northern rivers bordering Myanmar are now living in fear, being concerned about the impacts from the transboundary toxic pollution caused by unregulated mining upstream in Myanmar — as much as their uncertain future

The golden rays of afternoon sunlight penetrate through the overcast sky in the late rainy season and glow over 59-year-old Thip Khaolue’s two-rai riverside field near the Kok River in Mai Mhok Jam village, Mai Ai, the far northern district bordering Chiang Mai province and Myanmar’s Shan State. 

Some of her “Ladies” are left strained under the sunlight as the field was flooded with mud-laden floodwaters twice already during the past months. But Ms. Thip still considers herself lucky because, more or less, she managed to harvest this special species of Okra plants, the family’s main source of income.

It’s the next growing season, this coming November, that she just feels uncertain about. 

“They said they would come to help check the soil in my field before I grow the next crops to see whether it has been affected by the toxic contamination in the river. My field is not next to the river, farther than 30 metres, which they said is deemed safe; therefore, hopefully, it will survive the toxic contamination spilling from the river,” said Ms. Thip, with an unsure tone of voice.

The toxic pollution that is crossing the border to Thailand from Myanmar’s upstream areas as a result of unregulated mining is now causing anxiety and a psychological toll among the local residents downstream. (Read: SPECIAL REPORT: The Poisoned Rivers: From gold to rare earth, unregulated mining in Myanmar poisons the Mekong and its tributaries in Northern Thailand)

It’s not just Ms. Thip. Actually, tens of thousands of farmers and residents in this bordering district and several more in Chiang Rai, where the Kok, Sai, Ruak and the Mekong Rivers pass through, are sharing her feeling as uncertainty in their lives is growing against clarity — to the point that they have become unsure of what is safe to consume: their water, their food, and so on.

Since the issue broke out in March, these residents have been extensively kept in the dark about the toxic pollution and contamination, as scant and scattered information from state officials has been available to them. In some areas like Thaton, the residents are raising a hard question whether there has been a cover-up, especially regarding some sensitive issues about their health.

“They (community-based health promoting hospital) told us to wait for the test results, but I have not heard any thing from them; when I will know my test result or what I was sick of,” 42-year-old Gob Khodkham, a resident of Thaton’s Kaeng Sai Mool patch village, who had urine tested after working for hours in the water in April to build a bamboo raft for visitors during Song Kran festival to raise income and having some rashes developed on his skin.

Shortly after the incident, local state officials began investigating it, starting with those from the Pollution Control Department’s Environmental and Pollution Control Office 1 (Chiang Mai). They formed a team to conduct water testing along the 300-km-long Kok River before extending their testing to other locations, including the Mekong River. 

Other local government agencies responsible for water consumption, fisheries, agricultural production, and public health, then followed as instructed by their main agencies and the government.

But according to some local officials concerned, their testing and monitoring plans are limited as they are extensively tied up with the annual budgets. Some of the work has to be integrated into their routine monitoring work, they said.

So, the work is not quite as comprehensive and consistent as it is supposed to be, the officials admitted. For instance, the early testing on fish and farm crops was conducted on only a few samples due to the budget constraint. 

In Chiang Mai province or on the Sai River in Chiang Rai, for example, the officials concerned managed to set up just only one location in each area for sample collection on fishery, despite the fact that effective surveillance on toxic substances needs scientific planning and a span over a period of time, 5 years at least for fishery, as it takes time for these substances to accumulate in aquatic animals and show effects. 

So far, most of the officials’ testing and monitoring, except for those from the PCD’s Office 1, have shown a similar trend of test results; that the toxic substances were not found, or if found, they were below the standards. It’s just recently that the latest test results on water for household consumption show the water in up to 18 villages along the Kok River was contaminated with lead beyond the standard. This is not disclosed to the public but was revealed by a Chiang Mai MP of the opposition People’s Party, Phattarapong Leelaphat, who has been following up on the issue to raise public concerns with the government.

The results on health monitoring are far more complicated, as the test results of a large-scale testing in the two provinces during late July have still not been disclosed to the public yet.

Some observers have noted that the officials’ data has not been aggregated and integrated to help form a dataset that is solid and comprehensive enough to help the government form proper policies or solutions to this problem. And when it comes to information dissemination and communication with the public and residents, this simply falls short, being either scant, scattered, or inaccessible.

Mr. Gob, who has still been waiting for the test result on his health, just said: “They hardly tell us anything; whether we were sick or what we have to do next. We are just left being worried and worried.”

Amid growing concerns and frustrations among the residents, impacts on the ground have started to be felt in several communities along the rivers. 

The residents have now stayed away from their rivers and will not go into the rivers unnecessarily. There has hardly been fishing in the rivers for months, while other activities have almost come to a halt, including tourism or even traditional events like Song Kran.

More critically, safe water and soil have become scarce, driving people to desperately search for the resources they can trust — to live on.

Cartoon-styled information from relevant state agencies has been distributed to the residents in communities along the rivers. Several residents questioned: How do they know if their water sources or food are safe or not?
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
A child and his grandmother in Thaton’s Kaeng Sai Mool patch village were randomly picked for urine testing for the toxic substances, and no reasons were given to them why they were chosen, according to the child’s grandmother. The child was found to have arsenic in his body, and he got his urine tested again. The family has been waiting for the test result, without knowing what to do with him, as the officials did not tell them anything about what they should do with their health, according to the grandmother.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
The Public Health Ministry launched a large-scale testing on the residents’ urine in Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai in late July. The risk groups, mostly the residents living near the rivers or having touched the rivers, were provided with a risk assessment form before some of them were chosen as samples for the testing. In Chiang Rai alone, over 2,000 residents at risk were targeted, and 300 samples were chosen, according to the high-ranking public health official in the province. So far, the test results have not yet been disclosed to the public amid the unconfirmed report that at least seven people in Chiang Rai have arsenic beyond the standard in their bodies.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
A resident in Mae Muang Noi village in Mae Na Wang subdistrict, next to Thaton, Chiang Mai, was worried about the water in her well. She brought it to the officials from the PCD’s Office 1 to help test it during a community meeting in the village, where the officials and their colleagues from other offices came to meet the residents to update them about their test results. Such a mobile meeting is an attempt by local officials to reach the local residents after the government’s local information centres have failed to reach them. Hardly anyone came to see the staff deployed there or read the results posted on a board.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
Ms. Thip and her remaining yield that cannot be sold any more, as it has become unhealthy for the market following the flooding. This special species of Okra plants in each crop can give her a subsistent income, around thousands to tens of thousands of baht. Farmers who have fields by the Kok River in her community tend to maximise the use of their fields, rotating crops to satisfy the market to sustain their income. Their livelihoods, however, have become more and more uncertain due to the coming toxic pollution and contamination.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
The riverside fields along the Kok River in Mae Ai district, Chiang Mai. Farmers who own these fields grow various types of crops, from short-lived vegetables to rice to fruit orchards like mangos and oranges. They rely on water from the river, shallow wells, and groundwater. Their water sources are more and more confined as fears of toxic contamination are looming.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
The riverside fields by the Kok River and elsewhere are naturally floodplain areas where they are flooded seasonally. But in recent years, the residents by the Kok River said their fields have been flooded by floodwaters, which have become muddier and sediment-laden — to the point that they have deteriorated the quality of the soil, adding to their burden to clear them from their submerged fields. This year, it’s the toxic substances that are threatening their fields.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
The president of a water user group of Fai Chiang Rai (Chiang Rai sluice gate) in Chiang Rai, Pathompong Ritphang, is worried about the next cropping season of rice and the farmers’ future in his group, as they rely on water for irrigation from the sluice gate, which draws water from the Kok River. According to the Agricultural Office in Chiang Rai, more than 7,000 farmers grow rice in around 90,000 rai by the river. In addition, over 1,000 farmers grow rice in more than 20,000 rai along the Sai River, where some toxic substances are also detected.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

A few fish samples, including alien sucker fish feeding on the riverbed, caught in the Sai River before being sent to a lab for testing. Local fishery officials have put extensive efforts into collecting these live samples, as it’s not easy to collect them, prompting the number of their samples to vary each time, they said. The officials also tried to set up the locations along the rivers as many as they could, 21 locations so far; 20 in Chiang Rai, and only one in Chiang Mai. To monitor toxic substances in aquatic animals, the officials said, actually takes time, and it needs systematic planning and an adequate budget, both are currently absent from the government’s plans and policies. So far, the test results show no toxic contamination beyond the standard. Fishery officials in responsible areas generally keep informing the local residents that fish in the rivers are safe, but they had better not consume them.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

61-year-old La-orsri Mabangkru was the owner of the popular wooden restaurant in Thaton named Chan Kasem. It had been open for over 40 years and was a must-visit restaurant for Thaton visitors for years. Located by the riverside, the restaurant was in a good location for visitors to enjoy the scenic view of the Kok River, but it also came with a risk of flooding. But there had never been a time in her 40 years that her restaurant was at high risk like a few years ago. The flood became mud-laden and torrential, Ms. La-orsri said. During last year’s flood in September, brought by Typhoon Yagi, the mud-laden run-off swept her restaurant away and left almost nothing to her family. Ms. La-orsri rebuilt her restaurant in a more modern style and hoped that visitors would come to visit her restaurant again. It was just in March this year that the toxic pollution issue broke out, prompting people to become scared of it. Since, Ms. La-orsri has hardly seen anyone come to her restaurant, a sharp drop in the number, from over a hundred to a few a day. She, too, has no idea when the tourism in this remote town will become popular again. Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

Since the issue broke out in March, the impacts have been felt by the local residents as their livelihoods and occupations have been affected. In Karen Ruammitre village, a popular eco-tourism village by the Kok River in Mae Yao subdistrict in Chiang Rai province, hardly any visitors come to visit them and their elephants. The mahouts are struggling to take care of their elephants, as they too are unsure whether their animals’ food and water are safe. So far, they have decided to stop bathing their elephants in the river for fear that they could be sickened by the toxic pollution. They have invested in building an artificial tank and a tap water system connected to water sources on the mountains further away to ensure that their precious elephants will have safe water to eat and bathe.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

In Chiang Rai, scientists at the Chiang Rai Provincial Waterworks Authority Office have been busily testing samples of their office’s tap water. In recent years, especially since last year, the office has been detecting an increasing level of turbidity that has added to its burden to ensure safe tap water for the people.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
The Chiang Rai PWA office is responsible for the production of tap water supply for Chiang Rai residents who live in the district of Mueang Chiang Rai, the city’s centre, and the adjacent Wiang Chai district. There are around 40,000 to 100,000 residents in the estimate. The office uses raw water from the Kok River; hence, the increasing turbidity and the emerging issue concerning the toxic pollution in the river have prompted it to become stretched thin because it has been dealing with the existing challenge in providing an adequate supply for the residents already. Recently, the central PWA has decided to find new water sources to replace the Kok River for it after the officials at the Chiang Rai office and civil society in Chiang Rai raised the issue.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
The team from the PCD’s Office 1 collects water samples in the Kok River at the first location, named KK01. It was designated as close to the Thai-Myanmar border as possible, at around 600 metres from it.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

A water sample from KK01 near the Thai-Myanmar border.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad

The team of the PCD’s Office 1 has also been travelling back and forth to locations as far as those in the Mekong River. The first location in the Mekong was designated near the Golden Triangle, where the borders of the three countries meet. It’s named MK01.
Photo: Sayan Chuenudomsavad
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