Dark age... again

 

 

With the onset of an unprecedented economic growth in developing nations and the demand of energy starting to out-pacing such growth, both developed and developing countries are going back to coal mining to shorten the supply gap. Inspite of the dangers involved, governments have remained reluctant to initiate serious safety measures and implementing advanced life saving exploration technology. According to the Chinese government, more than 250,000 miners have died since 1949 whereas, over 4,700 coal miners were found dead in 2006 alone. India though is not lagging behind this race. A methane gas explosion this year, took over 50 lives near hilly coal area Dhanbad in Jharkhand. The situations in the coal mines of Jharkhand and West Bengal have often been complicated by lethal mine floods.

However, efforts to prop safety measures are under-taken worldwide. Laws have been implemented in developed countries to stop unsafe practices of coal mining. This has led to drastic reduction in mine death-tolls as most mining corporations were bound by law to put in place better safety measures. State-owned mines in other parts of the world have also shown satisfactory progress in catching up with international safety standards. However private owned small mines remain unregulated which actually leads to over 80% accidents and deaths worldwide. In order to cut down the operating cost, most of these private entities largely ignore these safety measures. While miners have to toil for few hundred dollars per month, these private owners are continuously making big bucks at the cost of innocent lives.

However, coal mining will always remain risky. Mere presence of laws would not help the cause unless efforts are made to educate miners, especially of the developing countries about their rights and safety measures. In this millennium when global warning systems can forewarn the arrival of an asteroid a decade before and when someone can stay in a space station for six months its naive to assume that mankind does not have the technology to save some hapless men risking their lives to prevent power cuts in our homes.