Undermining China: towns sink after mines close

By David Stanway HELIN, China (Reuters) – Deep in the coal heartlands of northern Shanxi province, people in Helin village are fighting a losing battle as the ground beneath them crumbles: patching up cracks, rebuilding walls and filling in sinkholes caused by decades of coal mining. Around 100 pits in Helin – buried in the hilly rural outskirts of the city of Xiaoyi – have been exhausted, and cluttered hamlets totter precariously on the brittle slopes of mines. It's scary, but what can we do?” Mines that burrowed under villages and towns during China's three-decade coal boom have left the authorities with the need to evacuate hundreds of communities in danger of sinking.

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Undermining China: towns sink after mines close