Word: guizhou
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...reality, the government's efforts are little more than black smoke and trick mirrors. Although local cadres have dutifully reported illegal-mine closures, many are secretly being kept open. In desolate places like Guizhou, there is no other way to make money. (Many provincial officials are shareholders in illicit, privately owned mines.) In other areas the ban has been unevenly enforced, creating a deadly problem: as some mine shafts are blocked by government inspectors, those still in operation receive less ventilation, increasing the chances of a gas explosion. Despite Beijing's highly publicized campaign, 3,200 miners have died...
...Guizhou's sunbaked earth yields little above ground. But just a few meters down, the earth turns black and hard. The coal is tantalizingly easy to reach; so are the lethal pockets of gas that cause explosions or asphyxiate workers. Zhang's husband, Li Zhenhua, had worked for a decade in a cluster of small, illegal mines near his Duck Pond village. Whenever an accident claimed lives, the pit would be ordered to close?but another would invariably open not far away. Much of the illegal mining is done at night to avoid government monitors. In any case, the inspectors...
...crouching low to heave their pickaxes into the crumbling blackness. To pass the time, some light cigarettes, risking a deadly explosion. The pay for a day's work is $1.20. If the miners are lucky, they can take small chunks of coal back home to heat their hearth. Still, Guizhou's able-bodied men clamor for these jobs. "How can the government close the mines?" asks Zhu Hua, 20, who has been working underground for five years. "We need the coal. Everybody does...
...Such accidents do happen with monotonous regularity. In August, there were seven major incidents, claiming 32 lives, in Guizhou alone. Labor activists estimate that for every reported death, there are perhaps three others that are never documented. Remoteness isolates local cadres from responsibility, and they know that a bad safety record could jettison their hopes of promotion. It's the rare case that comes into full light: a few weeks ago, an unusually zealous national media discovered that the deaths of 77 tin mine workers in Guangxi province had been hidden for weeks...
...Those are precisely the most dangerous ones: small, unregistered and free to operate without safety equipment and supervision. In the wake of the Duck Pond accident, the government closed more than 130 mines in the area, leaving only three officially open. But Guizhou's earth has far more coal to give. Zhang's 15-year-old son, Li Enyong, will likely join the night brigade soon. With his father dead, the family no longer has enough money to send the boy to school. "What else is there for him to do?" asks his mother, her hand resting...