Indonesia's electric car industry feeds on nickel that kills on Obi Island
Since 2012, the springs in the village of Kawasi on Obi Island have been polluted with chromium 6, an extremely toxic chemical compound. An international consortium of journalists, with which Deutsche Welle is associated, has identified the culprit as the nickel mine operator, the Indonesian conglomerate Harita, which supplies the electric vehicle battery industry.
In northeast Indonesia lies Obi, a mountainous, forested island once famous for its spices and peaceful fishing villages. Local life revolved around sago farming and rivers with water so pure that residents quenched their thirst directly from the streams and springs.
But things began to change when a nickel mine opened there. “Now the water tastes different and sometimes it even bubbles. It gives us stomach cramps,” says resident Nurhayati Jumadi. “But I can’t afford bottled water, so we still drink river water.”
In our joint investigation, the journalist consortium Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the investigative media outlet The Gecko Project analyzed thousands of internal emails and confidential reports made public by the whistleblower website Distributed Denial of Secrets . These documents prove that the village of Kawasi, on Obi Island, suffered widespread pollution due to the presence of the Indonesian conglomerate Harita Group for more than ten years, starting in 2012. Deutsche Welle and its partners had access to these documents and were able to analyze them for several months.
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