Journey to the end of coal

The race towards economic growth is often uncompromising for those that must suffer the consequences. That’s what I thought when I went to Shanxi, china to investigate working conditions for workers in coal mines.
It isn’t unusual that miners are working around 8 hours a day without eating, for that hard work they only get around 100 Euros a month! That´s barley enough to make the life go around for the miners. Think yourself, you are a miner with a wife and two children, and you are the only one who makes any money at all so the entire family has to chare the money. Would you be able to handle that? Don’t think so. Chinese mines are the most dangerous mines in the world, every day accidents occurs following with at least 20 killed. After an accident an inspector is coming, he is supposed to investigate what have happened and if the mine activity can continue or if the mine is too dangerous. But the problem is that these inspectors are always being paid off by the mine owner so the mine can go back to normal in a while. And every time I´m about to find something out someone is escorting me to the owner of the mine and the authority escort me to the nearest train going back to Beijing. This means that they really don’t want the trout to come up to the surface.
But that isn’t everything, on my way to a coal mine I meet an older lady, picking up something. It appears to be pieces of coal that have fallen of trucks, and she is using it to heat up her house and for cooking. She doesn’t even know the danger thanks to the toxic levels in the coal rests. According to her the environmental bureau should have informed her if there was any dangerous with using the remains of the coal.
As you hopefully have understood, this is not to be accepted. China must do something about this, firstly the police force have to get better education and maybe a higher salaries, something to make them stop taking bribes and such. And they also need to keep an eye on the mine owners and have a better conversation with the mine workers so they won´t work illegal.