Chapter 4 The sky is collapsing, the earth is miasma, the gas is coal

On the hillside three miles south of Xingjia Village, two cave dwellings stare into the distance alone. It turned out that the owner of the cave had built a brick cave house in the village behind, and now he has moved into his new home. For a year, these two cave dwellings have been idle, and several years later, after a nearby coal mine opened for production, a few workers who worked as miners in the coal mine at the foot of the mountain moved in. Later, the coal mines in this area gradually increased, dotted around the foot of the mountain, and the target was naturally the coal buried under the rocks in the mountain in front of us.

In order to seize coal resources, the coal boss chased and intercepted the pits. The coal boss asked the workers to eat and live nearby, because this made it easier for the workers to work in three shifts 24 hours a day and to dig coal day and night. An old miner was worried about this: "If this continues, the mountain will be dug down." Sure enough, a recent accident verified his prophecy. In the early morning of this day, Lao Wang, a worker, and several fellow workers who came back from the night shift were wondering why they couldn't find the two-hole cave dwelling where they lived.

Suddenly there was a loud noise, and half of the entire hill behind the village was wiped out, and the cave dwellings on the hillside were doomed. Fortunately, Lao Wang and several night shift workers were not at home. However, what makes Lao Wang extremely regretful is that the only "household appliance" he bought for 3.6 a few days ago, a flashlight, was tucked in the quilt. In this accident, it became the "buried" of the quilt. Taste". The mountain will naturally collapse if it is hollowed out. This is the truth that children understand. Shanxi's rich coal resources have made great contributions to the country's economic construction, but there is an unavoidable problem behind the coal production-the collapse of the goaf.

The coal was dug away, leaving "empty mountains". In the villages located on the gobs of coal mines, villagers often have to bear the threat of geological disasters such as ground subsidence, landslides, and shallow groundwater drainage, which have even seriously endangered the lives and property of local people. Coal mining brings not only wealth, but also disaster. This is the reality of coal-producing areas in Shanxi. Therefore, in some villages in the south of Shanxi, there are often such frightening scenes: farmland subsidence, houses cracked, water sources dry up, and roads blocked.

According to local people, no matter whether it is a newly built house or an old earthen kiln, there are wide and narrow cracks all over the walls, and seven or eight pillars are put on top of the kiln to temporarily support the roof of the kiln. piece of depression. The dilapidated houses have seriously troubled the villagers who have lived here for generations. With decades of continuous mining of coal resources, while the coal industry has created a brilliant local economy, it is also bringing disasters to the people here—the production and living environment is deteriorating year by year.

As a result, such a "scene" appeared in the rural area of ​​the local coal-producing mountainous area: the mine is under the village, the village is in the mine, and dilapidated houses and broken walls with "crooked noses and slanted eyes" are everywhere.The hollow area caused by indiscriminate mining and excavation endangers the people here at any time, and the pollution caused by the production of coal coke affects the whole country, and the degree of damage is even more shocking. Autumn is here, and in a sweet potato field near a coke oven in a coal mine, the old man Wang Fuqing cursed to himself while bowing his head, while waving the pick in his hand, he dug out the sweet potatoes in the field along the vines covered with soot. Behind him is a pile of small, dry sweet potatoes.

"Look, these coke ovens are roasting like this all year round, can the two acres of sweet potatoes planted by my family have a good harvest?" He grabbed a handful of loess in the field and said, "If you feel the temperature of the soil, can the crops survive?" It was this coal mine that Old Man Wang was cursing just now. Looking from a distance, the machines at the mouth of the mine are roaring, and mine carts are coming in and out of the pit mouth, transporting the coal produced in the pit back and forth to the coal yard, just like hardworking bees, it is a busy scene.

One kilometer away from the charcoal plant is the primary coal processing area downstream - the coking area. The eight coke ovens built on the mountain are competing to be the first to spew smoke and dust into the sky, and the whole ground is warm. "Coal coke does not separate families." The reason is very simple, because the overheating of the coal market has driven the price of coke soaring all the way. As a downstream product of the coal processing industry, the market price of coke has far exceeded that of coal. Therefore, when small coal mines produce coal, the coal bosses will "get the moon first" and will not let go of the "fat" of coking, of course. , the coking process here is an extensive soil processing technology, which causes considerable pollution to the environment.