The Armenian Health Ministry’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) collected samples from four locations in the village of Tsav and found the highly toxic liquid metal in all of them after being alerted by a local resident, Hovik Andranikian.
As he drank water on September 1, Andranikian felt something strange in his mouth before seeing tiny pieces of mercury float on the surface of his glace. He has since been the only villager heeding the warning issued by the authorities. He says he uses the water for only washing purposes, unlike his complacent neighbors who simply do not believe in the health risks involved.
“Let those who warn against it not drink; we drink … Either their laboratories are wrong, or -- I don't know -- it's some kind of misunderstanding,” one of them, Seyran Zakarian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“We all drink, cook, and bathe [with the tap water,] there are no casualties,” said the man.
“If that were really the case, there wouldn't be a living soul left in the village by now,” reasoned another Tsav resident, Arsen Aghajanian.
Even the village administration chief, Armen Aleksanian, admitted drinking the water supplied to the community of about 300 people located a dozen kilometers from Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. He said he is not able to enforce the effective government ban anyway.
“The whole village drunk, drinks and will drink it,” Aleksanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry declined to say whether further water sampling was carried out in Tsav in recent days. The CDCP and other ministry divisions have still not identified the source of the contamination that prompted a criminal investigation by law-enforcement authorities.