- At a glance: Hershal Pushkarna
- Climate change - guilty no. The unknown side of coal known as 1, which is also extremely dangerous
Developed and developing nations of the world met last week in Glasgow, Scotland, to discuss the COP26 talks on the Earth's degraded environment. Most of the time, such talks are about exchanging mystical advice on what to do and what not to do to prevent pollution. The question of who should take up the campaign of cleansing the face of the earth and who should pay the bill of cleansing is being raised by all the countries towards each other like a shuttle coke. But fortunately for mankind, this time an important decision has been taken collectively in Glasgow COP26. The decision is to stop using coal as fuel completely by 2050! While countries like Germany have pledged to shut down coal-fired thermal power plants by 203, India has vowed to reduce coal consumption by 50 per cent over the next two decades.
Given that about 75% of the world's power generation is due to coal, the above decision is a tough one.
The subject of this article is not global warming. Not even the pollution of the atmosphere caused by the burning of coal. At the center of the discussion are the miners working in the coal mines who are the first victims of the cold snap and deadly effects. Even so, owning one is still beyond the reach of the average person. Concerned neo-hippies and their global warming, i'll tell ya.
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I had to go on a Gyanpravas in West Bengal during the Diwali holidays on October 14. After visiting the Chittaranjan Locomotives Works factory, which manufactures electric locomotives for the Indian Railways, as well as the one-time Superbrander Raleigh Bicycle Factory, I had the opportunity to see the coal mine. There are also some colliery / collieries around the town of Asansol in Bengal, situated near the border of the state of Jharkhand, which has rich coal mines, one of which has reached there on time due to the prior approval of the operator.
While passing through the high clouds of coal on all sides, Matbar was amazed to see such a huge amount of coal, as he had never seen such a huge amount of coal before. Somewhere the coal was moving from one place to another sliding on a conveyor belt, somewhere it was being loaded into the lorry with the help of mechanical shovels and some of the workers were carrying the loads from here. Kalima's kingdom was as far as the eye could see. The workers' clothes were fine, and their mouths were black with charcoal.
The colliery was about 200 feet deep and dark. A helmet, a powerful headlamp, and a heavy battery to light it filled the waist before descending into the elevator. Arranged in a metal four-foot-by-four-foot cage-like lift, so the electric motor turned on. The lift began to slide down slowly as the metal wire wrapped around the mechanical spin was untied. Gently penetrate the natural light through the aperture on the surface. It began to recede and in a short time it became so dark that the headlamp had to be alerted. As the slow-moving elevator reached the bottom, the accompanying engineer clearly instructed, If Rakhe goes down the wrong lane, it will be impossible to get back here, so stay with me forever. '
There are two ways to dispose of coal formed millions of years ago in the deepest depths of the earth. (1) Open casta mining, in which layers of sand-clay-rocks are dug with mechanical tools. When this type of cover is removed, the coal layer starts to hit the ground and then it has to be scraped with a drill and shovel.
(2) Underground mining method involves digging deep holes in the ground. After the aperture carved in the vertical line reaches the coal layer, then mining of coal in the horizontal line starts. Tunnels should be carved in different directions and small and big alleys should be formed from each of the tunnels. As mining progresses, the streets become longer and wider. Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic driven world of Earl.
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Reaching the bottom of the colliery, the trek started. The headlamps light up, digging into the swamps formed on the ground by the spring water erupting from underground. The sounds of shovels, spades, and drills hit the cave walls, echoing. At every few distances giant-sized fans fluttered and blew in the colliery. There is no supply of fresh natural air six to seven hundred feet below the ground. So engineers dig holes in the mine at regular intervals and insert hollow shafts (metal pipes) into them. Oxygenated, fresh air from outside is pushed through the cylinder by compressor. The huge fan at the end of the shaft then spreads the air far and wide, thus providing fresh air supply to the miners. Despite this kind of planning, our lungs lacked oxygen. Not only was the humidity in the air unbearable, but the air entering the lungs with each breath seemed slightly heavier. The reason for this is understandable.
When we breathe on the surface, in addition to oxygen (21%), nitrogen (4%), argon (0.2%), carbon dioxide (0.04%) and other gases (0.03%) are drawn to the lungs. The key figure in this is the amount of oxygen, which is nowhere near as good as nitrogen, which is feared to keep our bodies throbbing. Problems such as shortness of breath, suffocation, panic, etc. occur when the amount of oxygen in the air entering the body through the nostrils decreases. This condition is called Black Damp in scientific terms, which cannot be experienced without being in a coal mine. Vista, especially out of reach of fresh air blowing fan, is exposed to black damp.
In addition, workers are permanently confronted with the Stink Damp problem caused by gases such as heavy flammable methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and gases such as hydrogen sulfanide, which spreads a foul odor like rotten eggs. (Stink = stench) He has to spend 8-10 hours a day in such an annoying environment.
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Conversations with the engineer who conducted the colliery tour revealed that the average miner risked an incurable disease known as Blavac Lung. Extremely fine particles of coal are blown into the air by the occasional explosive blast during drilling as well as the use of shovels, spades and drills to extract coal. Once inhaled, it clung to the walls of the dusty lungs. Their accumulation over the years reduces the elasticity of the lungs. The lungs cannot swell like a bellows. The act of breathing is very natural for us, but the lungs of a worker who has spent years in Colliery have become so brittle that he has to take a deep breath, and that action will exhaust him.
Medical science has found a cure for many incurable diseases, but there is no cure for Black Lung's disease to date. Thousands of miners, who have been sweating for years in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa and Meghalaya's Colliery, have been dying at the age of Blake Lung.
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While moving inside the mine, small and big tunnels were seen. Some were so narrow that workers had to kneel down to get inside. (Engineers refer to such mines as rat holes.) It is no exaggeration to say that the average worker who enters a rat hole with a shovel and a spade dies. This is because the sloping roof of the tunnel is likely to collapse anywhere. Coal crushers as well as rocks often slip and fall, killing the workers. At such times it is almost impossible to survive, as the suffocated mass suffocates due to lack of oxygen before being removed. In December 2016, 15 workers died in a landslide in Meghalaya's Colliery. On January 1, 2021, two more hardworking workers were trapped under a ton of coal in a rate hole.
In addition to landslides, another threat to the Colliery is groundwater flooding. As underground river-ditches flow around the tunnels, some of the water leaking from the cracks is constantly falling into the mine. Workers have to be very careful to dig up the amount of coal, because if it strikes too hard and creates a big hole, then it becomes challenging to chase after the rising water horse. In December 1975, 35 miners drowned when they came to Ghodapur in a colliery in Bihar. This incident is portrayed in the Hindi film 'Kala Paththalar'.
Severe accidents, black lungs, long-term deafness due to drilling in confined space, abnormal oscillation of the eyelids due to spending hours every day in a dark deadly mine even on a white day Many countries in the world, including ours, have a permanent war of miners with such physical problems. However, when it comes to pollution and the devastating effects of the environment on mankind as a whole, the workers are not even mentioned. How conveniently we have coined the term 'humanity'!
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