Indian town living in flames for a century
In the town of Jharia in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand state in India, a fire has been burning for almost a hundred years. Since 1916, fires have been burning unimpeded fuelled by the coal underground and occasionally escaping through chasms on the earth and swallowing up everything.
Photographer Johnny Haglund found out firsthand what it feels like to live amidst flames. His photo story The Earth is on Fire won the second prize at Pictures of the Year International for Science and Natural History Picture Story.
In an interview to Wired magazine, Haglund described vividly what daily life in blazes feels like.
“At the end of every day I had a layer of coal on my clothes and my skin and sometimes and I often felt like my face was burning,” he said.
“I had pretty heavy boots, but sometimes just walking around the soles almost melted off.”
The inhabitants live a life of make do, some bootleg the coal to sell, children play beside fissures sending forth flame and gas and in the cold, warming up besides the fires that have proved resilient against all efforts of dousing it.
The fires date back to the last century, when after a decade of private companies extracting coal, the large reserve caught fire and has been spreading ever since.
Experts think that the firms failed to backfill mines after digging, exposing them to the open air and allowing fires to start by spontaneous combustion. Today, some 70 fires still burn in Jharia having burned through 41 million tons of coal, according to the Wired article.
In 1970, India nationalised most of the coal industry, and Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) which control Jharia today estimate that the fires have blocked access to 2 billion tonnes more, worth around $220 billion.
In search of livelihood, some are said to steal the coal, unnoticed by authorities, to sell in the market or for personal use. The prospects do not seem very illuminating for the residents yet, underground fires are extremely difficult to put out, and the fires in Jharia have resisted attempts for the last century.
Sealing the surface, trenching and pumping in inert gases have had limited success and in 2008 BCCL tried to dig deeper to remove burning coal.
While the new method has helped cut the burning area to 2.2 square kilometres in April 2014 from over 9 square km six years ago, there is the possibility of the fire going out of control again, according to a Hindustan Times report published on June 1.
Inhabitants, surrounded by toxic fumes, subject to skin and respiratory illnesses, were supposed to be relocated by the government.
Till now bureaucratic holdups, local resistance has resulted in a bleak outcome, according to the Wired article.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to move more than 100,000 people living near coalfields in Jharkhand to new homes, making it easier to douse underground fires that have burned for a century and mine huge reserves of premium coal, Hindustan Times reported.
The report goes on to detail the delays in the progress of the rehabilitation work.
“Three years ago, the Jharia Rehabilitation and Development Authority (JRDA) identified Ram as one of about 50,000 people who should be moved but has yet to provide him a home. The number of people looking for a house has doubled since.”
Confusion over the compensation amount, delay in the building of new quarters – the process is slow. And the local’ outlook is aptly put in the remarks of one Arjun Ram: "If this is what my fate is, I will die here."
The deposits of Jharia are prized, being the only source of top quality steelmaking coal in the country. India spends $4 billion a year on importing that grade alone. Modi’s efforts to finally relocate the people of Jharia will not only be a relief for the exhausted life of the locals, but will also be a great boost in his efforts to revive the output from India’s nationalised coal sector.
Meanwhile, the earth remains burning, as Johnny Haglund’s picture portray a grim yet fascinating look of Jharia.
Comments