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Fire started in '61 still burning
By Li Xinran |
September 28, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA'S top planning body is making another effort to extinguish a coalfield fire that has been burning for nearly half a century.
But the effort to choke off the country's biggest coalfield blaze comes too late to prevent damage to the surrounding environment, which was harmed by local authorities' efforts to put out the flames several years ago.
The Wuda Coalfield in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region consists mainly of three coal mines stretching over an area of 35 square kilometers. Mining remains hampered there by the persistence of the underground fires, which can still be detected in 16 places.
In the latest attempt to kill the fires, the National Development and Reform Commission started late last month to pump mud and foam to lower the temperature of the on-fire layer and seal it off from the exposure to air.
The local government announced in late August 2008 that the fire had been extinguished. If that were true, asked an unnamed source with Shenhua Group Corporation Ltd, China's biggest coal mining company, which now manages the Wuda field, "Why are there so many spots still burning with heavy smoke?"
A technician with Shenhua told Beijing News that more than 85 percent of the ground surface had its landscape destroyed because of the fire management project between 2006 and 2008.
Not only did that effort fail to put out the fire, it also worsened the environmental disaster, according to the newspaper.
The area used to be covered by green meadows. It has been replaced everywhere by pits and by hunks of partially burned and useless hunks of coal.
A strong odor of sulfur dioxide permeates the air, though the intensity of the chemical is not life-threatening.
The fire started in 1961. The situation worsened in the1970s when hundreds of small coal mines started operating, heavily damaging the coal mine geology and widening the fire's spread, said Zhao Tiexiong, a Shenhua engineer.
Zhao said the fire has caused a loss of more than 10 million tons of coal and blocked access to 100 million tons.
The fire also released large amounts of sulphur, which then polluted the environment as acid rain, according to Zhao.
But the effort to choke off the country's biggest coalfield blaze comes too late to prevent damage to the surrounding environment, which was harmed by local authorities' efforts to put out the flames several years ago.
The Wuda Coalfield in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region consists mainly of three coal mines stretching over an area of 35 square kilometers. Mining remains hampered there by the persistence of the underground fires, which can still be detected in 16 places.
In the latest attempt to kill the fires, the National Development and Reform Commission started late last month to pump mud and foam to lower the temperature of the on-fire layer and seal it off from the exposure to air.
The local government announced in late August 2008 that the fire had been extinguished. If that were true, asked an unnamed source with Shenhua Group Corporation Ltd, China's biggest coal mining company, which now manages the Wuda field, "Why are there so many spots still burning with heavy smoke?"
A technician with Shenhua told Beijing News that more than 85 percent of the ground surface had its landscape destroyed because of the fire management project between 2006 and 2008.
Not only did that effort fail to put out the fire, it also worsened the environmental disaster, according to the newspaper.
The area used to be covered by green meadows. It has been replaced everywhere by pits and by hunks of partially burned and useless hunks of coal.
A strong odor of sulfur dioxide permeates the air, though the intensity of the chemical is not life-threatening.
The fire started in 1961. The situation worsened in the1970s when hundreds of small coal mines started operating, heavily damaging the coal mine geology and widening the fire's spread, said Zhao Tiexiong, a Shenhua engineer.
Zhao said the fire has caused a loss of more than 10 million tons of coal and blocked access to 100 million tons.
The fire also released large amounts of sulphur, which then polluted the environment as acid rain, according to Zhao.
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