this is such a huge problem in artisanal/small scale/illegal gold mining (no large scale gold operations use mercury anymore). mercury is dangerous to handle at best, but some practices common in artisanal gold mining are just brutal. I've seen video of a guy roasting a lump of mercury-gold amalgam on a shovel with a propane torch right next to where the person's wife & kid were preparing food. mercury vapor is much more easily absorbed into the body than if you eat it or through skin contact.
even well away from the mine there are big impacts, because mercury waste leaches in water and gets into rivers. mercury pollution gets about a million times worse when mercury is methylated into methyl-mercury, which happens when inorganic mercury gets into biologically active waters (rivers, wetlands, etc). methyl mercury is not only even more toxic than inorganic mercury, but it also bioaccumulates in fish and other wildlife (including humans), which, if there is any kind of functional ecosystem in the area, means that all kinds of food that people might eat from the area is contaminated. in this way, even people who aren't involved in artisanal gold mining with mercury get exposed to mercury.