Image by international accountability project via Flickr
Vivid images of the so-called ‘Door To Hell’ have circulated the internet for years. Lighting up the sky, the pit of fire in the midst of the Karakum Desert, started by engineers in the 1970s, blazes night and day due to the abundance of natural gases present at the site. While this site is popular for the magnificent sights it produces, a town in the Indian state of Jharkhand has gained media attention for a more sinister reason. In Jharia, like in the Karakum Desert, flames lights up the sky. The town sits on a century-old underground fire that poses a threat to the safety and wellbeing of over a million local people.
Jharia itself is home to around 700,000 people and an abundance of coal. The richness of this area means that low-cost, open-cast mining is a popular way to increase profit. Mining in the area began in 1894 and peaked around 1925. Since then, over one hundred collieries have operated in the area. As one of Asia’s largest coal deposits, and the home to so many coal pioneers and businesses, Jharia is a popular and profitable town, selling coal to Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. Its businesses and its inhabitants, however, have suffered from the town’s rich resources: huge, coal-fuelled fires have burned underground for almost a century.
Fires began after the collapse of a coal mine in 1916 and have spread continuously since then. They have seen the destruction of collieries and other businesses, and in 2003 created the sinkholes that swallowed 250 houses within four hours. Because of the burning coal, the fires also produce large quantities of toxic fumes, including carbon dioxide and sulphur, as well as particulate matter. As a result, the emissions are incredibly hazardous to human health. Local residents suffer from high rates of skin and lung diseases, as well as respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis. This data, as well as the increasing threat to infrastructure from unstable ground, is building up to an eventual humanitarian disaster in the region.
The area is also plagued with environmental issues. Water supplies are contaminated by the gases and sediments purged from the fire. The sulphur produced by the burning coal also increases the acidity of the water. This, combined with the inhospitable land degraded by flames, means that vegetation struggles to grow in the area. As the fourth biggest source of greenhouse gas in India, the Jharia coal fires also have large-scale implications for the world. The area hosts one of the densest collections of coal fires on this planet. The flames consume coal at an alarming rate, with around 37 million tons of the resource lost since 1916, and another 1.5 billion tons deemed inaccessible due to burning. If the fires continue to burn at the rate they currently are, the abundance of coal means that they could last for another 3,800 years.
After the nationalisation of the Indian coal industry in 1971, around 600 collieries were inherited by Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), many of them on fire. Despite warnings of the dangers, mining has continued in the region, with the open-cast method replacing underground mining in 1973. Residents now live in close proximity to coal pits dug by miners, and these coal pits are at high risk of fire. Instead of covering the pits with sand and clay, as is traditional after open-cast mining, the coal is left exposed to the air, and therefore oxygen. Even a cigarette stub or a spark could ignite a blaze. Open-cast mining has resulted in fires burning above the ground in addition to the large subterranean fire underneath. The Jharia coal field is now the largest complex of above and underground fires in the world.
Subterranean fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. The Centralia coal fires in Pennsylvania, for example, have resulted in the almost total abandonment of the area, as well as the neighbouring town of Byrnesville. But rather than trying to tackle the flames, the BCCL and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have decided instead on a relocation programme. If it is successful, this programme will move more than one million people from their homes despite protests from residents of the unfairness of this decision. The decision has also provoked criticism by the media, as well as those cynical of the BCCL’s motives. To many, it seems that residents are not being removed from their homes for their own safety. Rather, the relocation programme is a capitalist venture to clear the way for the BCCL to access the more than 1,000 million tons of coal lying beneath the town, and thus increase the profitability of their floundering business.
Originally published on The Global Panorama.
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