LITHIUM MINING

Argentina, Bolivia and Chile hold the planet’s largest reserves of lithium, a key component in batteries used to power a range of technologies from cell phones to laptops to electric cars.

Industrial production from the so-called “lithium triangle” is already high. Chile is the world’s leading source of the metal, turning out around 40 percent of global supply, and Argentina is another significant producer. Output from the Andes may soon rise after Bolivia – the country that holds an estimated 50 percent of the world’s lithium reserves – opened its first lithium pilot plant in January.

2012 is the year of extremes in northern Brazil. Two regions of the country’s vast north suffered their worst natural disasters in recorded history, but they were opposite disasters, with floods in the Amazon and drought in the northeast. Reuters photographers Ricardo Moraes and Bruno Kelly covered both stories. Their contrasting accounts follow:

Ricardo Moraes writes from northeastern Bahia State:

People suffering without water but full of hope, was what I found in the state of Bahia, facing its worst drought in half a century.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Last Thursday, April 7, a gunman entered under a false pretext the Tasso da Silveira school in a Rio de Janeiro suburb, carrying two pistols and dozens of rounds of ammunition. An alumnus himself of the same school where he had a history of being bullied and mental illness, he lined children up facing the wall and shot two dozen of them, before turning the gun on himself. Twelve students were dead, and others are still agonizing in the hospital.

This is the most painful type of story for most photographers, when a senseless tragedy involves children. The two Reuters photographers who covered the shooting and subsequent funerals speak here of their experiences, and how they coped professionally and personally.

A hundred questions raced through my mind as I sat in a taxi zigzagging through traffic towards what first reports described as a major disaster area, a rush-hour plane crash in downtown Sao Paulo.Will my taxi be able to get close enough to the crash? Will I have to hike the city’s dangerous streets with my camera gear? Will my cell phone connect to the Internet as thousands of people call their relatives? Are other photographers already at the site? What scenes of disaster and grieving will I encounter? Will my longest lens be long enough?Amid all these thoughts, despite the screaming sirens and my urgency to arrive, my mind flashed back 15 years in time to a distant memory - a bus ride in Bolivia. That bus ride, along an Andean mountain track that is popularly known as the world’s most dangerous road, was the last time in memory that I traveled anywhere without carrying anxiety as part of my emotional baggage.Then, I rode in a window seat of a rusty, 45-passenger bus with my head out the window observing the breathtaking scenery. I couldn’t help noticing how curious it was to watch the bus’ rear tire skirting the edge of the cliff and pushing stones into the green abyss as it rounded every tight curve of the winding road, a road not always wide enough for the bus I was in.I sensed only curiosity. No fear. No thoughts of the consequences of a simple driver error, a loose boulder falling onto the roadbed or even brake failure.One day soon after that ride I was called out, just as I was called to this tragedy in Sao Paulo, to photograph the crash of a bus identical to the one I had traveled in. It had slipped off the edge of that same mountain road and broken into pieces as it tumbled into the rocky jungle below.The bodies and belongings of the 45 occupants were strewn all down the cliff face. Some hung from trees. Relatives arrived at the site in despair. Rescue workers brought the remains up from the gorge in a scene that I would soon learn was all too common along that perilous route.That was the first accident story of my news career, and traveling has never felt the same since.After that crash I returned many times to visit that spectacular part of Bolivia, but never again in a bus too wide for the road.A few years later I covered my first plane crash in Uruguay. Again, I lost my serenity forever. Since then I have never flown without feeling a certain anxiety about what I had seen can happen to airplanes.Today, several bus and plane crashes later, a disaster like this one in Sao Paulo is to me another grim reminder of what can happen to a relatively few, very unfortunate travelers.The crash site I finally arrived at in Sao Paulo was one of devastation and disbelief. It was still too early for grief, but the following days were dominated by it.I pity the distraught relatives of the 187 unsuspecting occupants of the TAM Airbus that ended in tragedy. As I return to the job of covering more routine news, they will relive that day relentlessly for years to come.After photographing the accident that has since been labeled as Brazils worst-ever plane crash, I expect to feel maybe a little more anxiety the next time I step into a plane.But whenever that happens the memory I will most likely recall, for better or for worse, is that of a serene bus ride along the worlds most dangerous road.(credits from top: Rickey Rogers – photos 1, 2, 3, 5, 6; Paulo Whitaker – photo 4)