Bougainville Panguna Mine -Landsat images suggest something has happened since 2010, is human activity the cause?

by Ganesh Sahathevan 

These images of the Bougainville  Panguna Mine and surrounding areas have been generated  by utilising  Qiusheng Wu's Timelapse web app. 

Rio Tinto operated the mine until 1989 and since them mine has been disused.

However, the Landsat time lapse  images generated suggest something  has happened since 2010.  Is human activity the cause, and if so who are the actors? 

Water bodies are coloured black, and the mine is at the centre of the image. 

The images suggest  that the river bed from the mine to the sea has risen, indicated in part by an increase in vegetation,  and that the river was diverted first to the right, and then to the left roughly half way toward the sea. There seems to have been significant surface  alteration as a result.

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