Jharia

Jharia Territory - India, 2007/2010

 

Hell on Earth has a name: Jharia. This region of Jharkhand is historically a land of exploitation, home to one of India's largest coal deposits. But about a century ago, a fire broke out in one of the countless mine shafts dug deep beneath it. Since then, the blaze has been spreading. Drastic measures, such as pouring concrete hundreds of meters deep, might contain the inferno. But the British and then the Indian authorities have always refused. As a result, the seams catch fire one after another. Above them lie the towns, the villages, the opulent villas of the mining company executives, but also the squalid shelters reserved for the coal miners' proletariat. Half a million people live on top of this enormous inferno as if on a volcano.

 

A frantic race against time ensued to extract as much unburned coal as possible, in truly hellish conditions. Bulldozers were seen being hosed down to allow them to excavate. Fumaroles, smoke, and sulfurous vapors billowed from some of the open-pit mines, and fires were hastily smothered with stone and rubble. The once verdant landscapes, home to elephants, tigers, and antelopes, were unrecognizable.

 

Thousands of day laborers—former tribal people, untouchables, and the poor from all over India—depend on this coal economy. Many work in the mines, loading the mine carts. They are also allowed to steal and traffic the precious ore—just enough to survive. These men have lost their identities, like all those faces constantly blackened by coal dust.