Ricardo Morales started mining Bolivia’s Cerro Rico when he was 12, and he’s proud of the mountain’s majestic history. “It’s said that the silver taken from here could have built a bridge from the peak to Spain’s palace door,” boasts the raspy-voiced Morales, 52, standing at the entrance to his mine some 14,000 feet above sea level. But today, after almost 500 years of non-stop extraction, the Cerro Rico’s grandeur is collapsing — literally, like a titanic souffle. Earlier this year, a 3,767-sq-ft crater opened near the mountain’s summit, and geologists warn of more implosions to come.
Yet that’s not the worst part. Even though much of the exhausted Cerro Rico seems set to give way, miners like Morales insist on staying and plucking as much treasure as they can from the mountain, whose name means Rich Hill. That raises a larger specter of not only geologic but human loss, especially since the Bolivian government doesn’t seem to be able to stop mining activity there. “I am a miner,” says Morales, shrugging as he hunches down into his oxygen-scarce tunnel. “What else am I supposed to do?”
