Changing China
Giant on the move
The Price of Coal
What drives a miner to work in one of China’s notoriously dangerous pits, where 3,000 people were killed in 2008 alone?
“We all know mining is dangerous, but what can we do?” Li Liangcang, a farmer form eastern China, asked me in his tiny rented miner’s house in the country’s frozen north. “I’m not young any more – 37 or 38 – and it’s too late to learn a skill. It’s not a question of choice. you have a family that depends on you. If you don’t do this job, what else can you do?”
For his 56-year-old friend Zhu Xiuli, it’s a similar story.
But then what would their families do without them?
To see a Reuters report on the relatives of men killed in a recent blast at the nearby Xinxing mine click here
Photo credit: Jason Lee
