{"id":43127,"date":"2025-11-19T08:56:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.laregion.bo\/bolivia-la-montana-que-financio-al-imperio-espanol-puede-colapsar-tras-500-anos-de-explotacion-minera\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T10:17:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T14:17:40","slug":"bolivia-la-montana-que-financio-al-imperio-espanol-puede-colapsar-tras-500-anos-de-explotacion-minera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laregion.bo\/en\/bolivia-la-montana-que-financio-al-imperio-espanol-puede-colapsar-tras-500-anos-de-explotacion-minera\/","title":{"rendered":"In the heart of Bolivia, the mountain that financed an empire risks collapsing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
Benjamin Swift\/Mongabay Latam<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

AAt about 4,800 meters, or nearly 15,800 feet, above sea level, Cerro Rico towers over the city of Potos\u00ed, in Bolivia\u2019s southern highlands. Famous for its vast silver reserves, Cerro Rico \u2014 whose name means \u201crich mountain\u201d in Spanish \u2014 almost single-handedly financed the Spanish Empire. In 1656, author Antonio de Le\u00f3n Pinelo claimed that enough silver had been extracted by Indigenous and African slaves to build a bridge from Bolivia to Madrid. At its peak in the early 17th century, Potos\u00ed was one of the world\u2019s most populated cities, bigger even than London and Milan. UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/a>, today the mountain is still exploited by miners associated with 54 cooperatives for zinc, lead, tin and silver, and continues to fuel the city\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, riddled with tunnels after nearly 500 years<\/a> of informal mining, the upper part of the mountain is on the brink of collapse, threatening the  approximately 180 families who live on the mountain and the roughly 10,000 miners working there, the majority of them Indigenous Quechua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the houses are cracked because everything is sinking,\u201d Silvia Mamani Armijo, 34, who lives on the mountain with her three young children and works as a mine tunnel guard, told Mongabay. \u201cDuring the rainy season this whole area can collapse,\u201d she added, pointing to the cracks in the adobe walls of several houses near hers. \u201cSo many families could die.\u201d<\/p>

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Small cave-ins dot Cerro Rico in the area around Basilio Vargas\u2019 childhood home. Image by Benjamin Swift.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Small collapses have long been part of life at Cerro Rico, whose centuries of mining, dating back to the city\u2019s founding as a Spanish colonial outpost in 1545, have claimed the lives of possibly 8 million miners<\/a>, according to historical estimates. But in recent years, fueled by rising mineral prices, new extraction techniques and the instability of a hollowed-out mountain, these collapses have become more frequent and severe. In 2010, a major collapse near the mountain\u2019s peak was the first of many<\/a>. In 2014, UNESCO added Cerro Rico and Potos\u00ed to its list of endangered world heritage sites, citing the risk<\/a> that \u201ccontinued and uncontrolled mining operations\u201d pose to the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collapse of Cerro Rico<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As mountains go, it\u2019s hard to put a number on just how high Cerro Rico is. It\u2019s currently thought to stand at approximately 4,753 meters (15,594 feet), nearly 250 m (820 ft) shorter than its estimated original height before Spanish mining began in the 16th century. \u201cIt will probably collapse another 10 or 20 meters [33-66 ft],\u201d Freddy Llanos, a mining engineer at Tom\u00e1s Fr\u00edas Autonomous University in Potos\u00ed and a member of the technical commission for preserving Cerro Rico, told Mongabay in a phone interview. \u201cIt will end up as a truncated cone,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A result of its unique mineralogy and the brutal exploitation<\/a> of slave labor by Spanish colonizers, the riches from Cerro Rico were key to propelling global capitalism<\/a>. \u201cThe wealth from Cerro Rico generated the globalization of the world economy,\u201d Llanos said. \u201cDuring colonial times, the profits went to Europe via Spain, and during World War II our tin supported the war effort<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though rich in minerals, the department of Potos\u00ed is one of Bolivia\u2019s poorest<\/a>. \u201cPeople came to Potos\u00ed, got rich, and left,\u201d Hern\u00e1n R\u00edos Montero, a geologist at Tom\u00e1s Fr\u00edas Autonomous University, told Mongabay, explaining that the capital that didn\u2019t leave the country went to neighboring cities. As mining continues after 480 years of informal extraction and a lack of investment to preserve the mountain, the mountain is crisscrossed with countless tunnels and becoming increasingly unstable<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Miner Basilio Vargas near his former childhood home, which caved in when the earth underneath it gave way. Image by Emmanuel Escobar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The collapse of Cerro Rico has also been accelerated by intensified mining activity. In September, state mining company COMIBOL reported <\/a>that approximately 30,000 miners currently work on the mountain, a sharp increase from the 20,000 reported by mining authorities in 2024, and 12,000 in 2023. Mario Caro, a journalist from Potos\u00ed, told Mongabay that the numbers reported by COMIBOL are inflated to increase the political power of the mining sector, and estimated the actual number at around 10,000, though he said mining activity is indeed increasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The surge in mining activity is driven by high mineral prices, with silver<\/a> trading at almost all-time highs in 2025<\/a>.<\/a> Soaring global demand for solar panels, which rely on silver, and wind turbines, which require zinc in their manufacturing, has contributed to the recent price surges. \u201cWhile we bear the brunt of plunder and exploitation, it\u2019s other countries who are talking about a transition,\u201d Alfredo Zaconeta, a mining researcher at Bolivian nonprofit CEDLA<\/a>, told Mongabay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mining in Cerro Rico is run by many independently operating cooperatives<\/a>, with workers flocking to the mines when prices are high. Though the work is dangerous, miners can earn much more than in most other professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changes in mining technology have also led to more collapses. \u201cBack then, you had to take the drill bit and hammer, manually dig a hole, and then load it with dynamite,\u201d Basilio Vargas, 35, a miner since he was 11, told Mongabay. Today, pneumatic drills allow miners to work much faster, filling a 20-ton dump truck in days \u2014 a job that previously would have taken three to four weeks. Vargas and his family were featured in a 2005 documentary<\/a> about child miners in Potos\u00ed, and he said his house that appears in the film has since disappeared after the ground beneath it caved in. \u201cThere are more and more cave-ins every year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the majority of Cerro Rico\u2019s early wealth originated from veins of pure silver, these deposits are now all but gone. Instead, miners now extract large volumes of minerals distributed in small concentrations throughout the rock, requiring them to extract more ore to earn profits. The miners then sell the ore to the Manquiri Mining Company<\/a>, which runs a processing plant that crushes and leaches it to recover the metals. According to R\u00edos Montero and Zaconeta, leaching technology has contributed to the mountain\u2019s collapse by increasing the volume of material removed from the mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A home with cracked walls in an area at risk of collapse. Image by Emmanuel Escobar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Though problematic for preserving the mountain, collapses are beneficial to mining cooperatives and refiners like Manquiri, said Zaconeta, pointing out that collapses serve the same function as dynamite. \u201cIf there\u2019s a natural collapse, you can save a lot of time, because the cooperatives can directly collect the collapsed material,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manquiri and its Canadian parent company, Andean Precious Metals<\/a>, which miners and experts say help drive demand for disseminated minerals linked to the mountain\u2019s collapses, did not respond to Mongabay\u2019s repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community impacts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As of Oct. 3, 96 people had died while working in mining in Potos\u00ed department in 2025, with at least 90 of them having died inside Cerro Rico, according to unpublished police data. Mario Caro, the journalist from Potos\u00ed, told Mongabay that many deaths go unreported, and noted that death rates in 2025 have been higher than in previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of those killed were men, but women are also at risk, as the increased mining activity gives them more work in and around the mines. As guardabocaminas<\/em>, or mine-mouth guards, Silvia Mamani Armijo and her mother, Luc\u00eda Armijo, defend mine tunnels from thieves with little more than dogs and dynamite, which they light and throw at potential intruders. These women live at the mine entrances, often without electricity or running water, and earn 500 to 1,000 bolivianos per month (about $72-$145 at the official exchange rate), or about 18-36% of Bolivia\u2019s minimum wage. They also sell some mineral waste from the mines to supplement their incomes. If a robbery occurs, cooperative bosses frequently deduct the losses from their wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cerro Rico mountain in Potos\u00ed, Bolivia, known for its silver mines that financed the Spanish empire. Image by Benjamin Swift.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not nice living on the mountain,\u201d Luc\u00eda Armijo, 51, who has been a guardabocamina on Cerro Rico  <\/em>for more than 30 years, told Mongabay. \u201cDuring the rainy season you have to be worried that any part of the mountain could collapse, that anything could happen,\u201d she added as she passed the area where her daughter Claudia\u2019s house once stood before collapsing. \u201cWhere will our children and grandchildren go, where will they work? There isn\u2019t so much as a factory in Potos\u00ed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armijo, who like many Potosinos speaks Quechua as her first language, said the dangers of living on Cerro Rico go beyond its structural instability. \u201cThat dust \u2014 look where it goes,\u201d she said as a gust of wind blew across the mountain. \u201cIt goes straight into our rooms, it\u2019s just awful.\u201d Without running water on the mountain, the mining cooperative that employs Armijo periodically fills large metal barrels with water which, contaminated by mining dust, cause frequent diarrhea for her and her children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luc\u00eda Armijo inspects a barrel of water outside her home on Cerro Rico, which she says causes diarrhea when it is contaminated with dust from the mountain. Image by Emmanuel Escobar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sexual violence and exploitative, often illegal, labor practices are also common for women working on Cerro Rico<\/a>, Paulina Ibeth Garabito Ovando, founder of MUSOL<\/a>, an organization that supports women in Potos\u00ed\u2019s mining sector, told Mongabay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impacts of Cerro Rico\u2019s collapse go beyond the material. A relic of colonial history, the peak remains a powerful symbol of identity and pride for Potosinos and Bolivians in general. Its silhouette dominates the local skyline and features prominently in national iconography, from the country\u2019s coat of arms to banknotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPuntita era pues<\/em>\u201d (\u201cit used to be a sharp peak\u201d), Petrona Santos Mamani, 82, told Mongabay, recalling the mountain\u2019s shape from her childhood. \u201cIt\u2019s a symbol of Bolivia, and now it\u2019s broken,\u201d said the woman who spent her adult life working as a palliri<\/em>, a Quechua word<\/a> used to describe women miners who manually crush rocks outside the tunnels in search of minerals. \u201cIt hurts to see the Cerro like this, it makes me want to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ibeth Garabito Ovando  (far left) at a meeting with a group of guardabocaminas in Potos\u00ed, Bolivia. Image by Benjamin Swift.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Santos Mamani participated in a 1996 action when more than 250 palliris occupied the summit of Cerro Rico to protest the unsustainable exploitation of the mountain driven by a refinery company owned by then-president Gonzalo S\u00e1nchez de Lozada. The palliris are now currently considering another collective action to demand the preservation of the national symbol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It further worries Santos Mamani that the same trends that enriched Europe with little benefits to the Bolivian communities producing raw materials seem likely to continue elsewhere in the department of Potos\u00ed, with the Bolivian government recently signing<\/a> lithium mining contracts<\/a> with two foreign companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next for Cerro Rico?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Efforts to preserve the historic summit have been slow and underfunded. In 2022, a Potos\u00ed court ordered COMIBOL<\/a> to close all mine entrances above 4,400 m (14,436 ft) and move them to lower, more stable ground in an effort to preserve the mountain and allow mining operations to continue safely. But three years later, the relocation remains unfinished<\/a>, delayed by resistance from mining cooperatives who see the move as a threat to their bottom line, given that the highest concentrations of minerals are near the mountain\u2019s peak. \u201cI wish the authorities would care,\u201d said Mamani Armijo, adding she fears that her home and the mine she guards could collapse. \u201cSo many families work here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luc\u00eda Armijo walks past mining ore carts on Cerro Rico. Image by Emmanuel Escobar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Zaconeta and other experts, the close alliance between mining cooperatives and the Bolivian government throughout the last 20 years has also played a role in slowing down preservation efforts. \u201cWhat they\u2019ve achieved is a great deal of permissiveness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the department of Potos\u00ed is rich in minerals, Llanos said government mining authorities haven\u2019t undertaken the necessary exploration to find new deposits, which would make COMIBOL\u2019s mandate to migrate mine entrances more viable. \u201cWe\u2019re still exploiting minerals from the same deposits that were known in colonial times,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, a court ordered<\/a> that the bank accounts of the mining minister Alejandro Santos Laura, COMIBOL president Reynaldo Pardo Fern\u00e1ndez, and COMIBOL\u2019s Potos\u00ed regional manager, Iv\u00e1n Guillermo Fuentes, be frozen until they complied with previous orders to preserve the structure of the peak. It gave them 31 days to demonstrate progress. In a press conference<\/a> after the court decision, Pardo Fern\u00e1ndez defended the state mining corporation\u2019s work to preserve the mountain and said it would take \u201cdrastic measures\u201d to accelerate the closure of mine entrances above 4,400 m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early October, COMIBOL and the Departmental Federation of Mining Cooperatives (FEDECOMIN) instated restrictions<\/a> that allow mining only during the day and only on weekdays, and prohibit the use of heavy machinery above 4,400 m. Santos Laura also said in a press conference<\/a> that \u201cwe\u2019ve completed more than 60%\u201d of the work to migrate mine entrances, with 20 mines above 4,400 m closed and another 10 remaining. During a miners\u2019 march, FEDECOMIN president \u00d3scar Chavarr\u00eda told reporters<\/a> that miners would be willing<\/a> to stop working on Cerro Rico if authorities granted them concessions to exploit deposits elsewhere, giving officials 30 days to respond to their demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caro said he\u2019s skeptical that the officials\u2019 bank account closures would compel COMIBOL to prioritize the migration of mine entrances, pointing out that only the personal bank accounts of the mining authorities had been closed. \u201cThey have money coming in from all over the place,\u201d he told Mongabay in a phone interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After speaking about the mine migration process with El Pa\u00eds<\/em><\/a> in July, a COMIBOL spokesperson told Mongabay that the state mining company was no longer granting interviews regarding Cerro Rico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Luc\u00eda Armijo holds a stick of dynamite \u2013 an essential tool for warding off thieves \u2013 outside her home on Cerro Rico. Image by Emmanuel Escobar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Llanos and colleagues have proposed an initiative to reinforce the peak with concrete and steel, which would both prevent miners from tunneling upward and strengthen the structure of the summit. But lacking $3.5 million in funding amid a deepening economic crisis<\/a>, some worry the project may never be completed \u2014 a reality that Llanos finds ironic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can never know exactly how many billions of dollars Potos\u00ed\u2019s Cerro Rico has generated, and continues to generate,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should be a moral and material obligation to give back to the Cerro, I don\u2019t know, 0.00001% of the foreign currency that it generated over centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early October, the governor of Potos\u00ed, Marco Antonio Copa Guti\u00e9rrez, held a meeting<\/a> with local and national authorities, civic leaders and mining cooperatives, in which they signed an agreement to support Llanos\u2019s initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mining ore carts outside Silvia Mamani Armijo\u2019s home on Cerro Rico. Image by Emmanuel Escobar.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While these developments are important, \u201cthere\u2019s still a lot of uncertainty,\u201d said Zaconeta, as stabilizing the mountain would require significant funding and political will. Freddy Llanos said he sees these developments as hopeful and hopes to hold meetings with local and departmental government authorities to discuss technical details and potential for financing in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe problem Cerro Rico is facing is a problem for the whole world, since one way or another, the world has benefited from its riches,\u201d he said. \u201cIt must be resolved urgently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banner image<\/strong>:<\/em> Cerro Rico mountain above the city of Potos\u00ed, Bolivia. Image by Benjamin Swift.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

FEEDBACK: Use this form <\/a>to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Este texto fue publicado originalmente en Mongabay US el pasado 22 de octubre, puede leerlo aqu\u00ed<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nearly 500 years of mining, Cerro Rico, the Bolivian mountain whose silver financed the Spanish Empire, is experiencing increasingly frequent and severe cave-ins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"3665,10355,40026,15993,8131,6036","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[363,896],"tags":[1617,1618,1619,1620],"class_list":{"0":"post-43127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"category-portada-en","9":"tag-cerro-rico-en","10":"tag-derrumbe-montana-potosi-en","11":"tag-explotacion-minera-bolivia-en","12":"tag-mineria-quechua-en"},"yoast_head":"\nIn the heart of Bolivia, the mountain that financed an empire risks collapsing - 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