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Page added on July 29, 2006
China’s coal catastrophe
China produces more coal than anywhere else in the world, fuelling the country’s economic boom. But it comes at a terrible price: the mines are the world’s deadliest, and their environmental impact is catastrophic. Safer – and cleaner – technology exists. But is there the political will to make it happen?
Coal is a matter of life and death in China, heating homes and powering the factories that produce the goods driving China’s economic boom. More than half of all finished industrial goods are now made in China, and they could not have been manufactured without power from coal. The economic boom has lifted hundreds of millions of people off the poverty line, but the downside is immense. China’s coal mines are also the world’s deadliest, by a big margin, accounting for 80 per cent of mining deaths globally. Put it this way – every million tons of coal produced in the country costs the lives of around five Chinese people.
The Independent
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