Moving: Harsh choice for residents in China's mined-out coal base

by Xinhua writers Yang Bo, Lu Xiaoyu

TAIYUAN, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Zhou Dewen, a villager
from Huairen County of China's north Shanxi Province, has been thinking of
moving for years. In his brick cottage, cracks stretch from the ground to the
roof -- and keep widening.

"Maybe one day, we will be buried in our dream," says
the 38-year-old plowman living with his wife, daughter and son.

In China, the biggest coal producer and consumer in
the world, a quarter of the coal is mined in Shanxi Province, where 9 billion
tonnes of coal has been produced since 1949. Subsidence affects 5,000 square
kilometers and Zhou's village, Wangbianzhuang, is one of the 676 villages
suffering serious problems.

In 2006, cracks emerged in the ground around the
village. "They widen like beasts' mouths," says Zhou, "and some villagers have
hurt their legs getting stuck in them."

Zhou said at least a dozen of houses in the village
bear cracks at the moment. "We have to fill the cracks with cement, but who
knows how long the house will hold out?"

According to the Bureau of Land and Resources of
Shanxi Province showed that 151 people died in 362 geological accidents in the
five years to 2006, and 70 percent of the accidents were blamed on over-mining.

Another problem is the ground water. "Water levels in
the wells get lower and lower. It's not enough for my family, let alone the
crops," says Zhou.

The government has reinforced and built houses as
well as supplied drinking water for 231,000 rural residents since April 2007. A
subsidy of 5,000 yuan (733 U.S. dollars) is given to each rural resident if he
or she relocates.

"I heard that the new houses are very beautiful, and
they are built near the county seat," says Zhou. "But we need to pay another
10,000 to 20,000 yuan (1,466 to 2,932 U.S. dollars) ourselves -- that would pay
for three years' tuition for my two children."

Zhou adds that without a livelihood, he and his wife
could not afford the higher cost of living near the country seat.

Previously, in the slack farming season, Zhou drove
coal trucks for local mines to neighboring Hebei Province, earning an extra
3,000 yuan (440 U.S. dollars) every month.

However, the number of mines in Shanxi Province has
been cut from about 10,000 in the early 1990s to a little more than 2,500, to
modernize production and reduce accidents. The number is expected to fall to
about 1,000 next year.

This means an end to the "second jobs" of many rural
people. "Most of the coal trucks are locked in garages now, and I have been
staying home all this year," Zhou sighed.

Zhang Zhong, head of the Bureau of Land and Resources
of Huairen County, says the county government is working with the rural credit
cooperatives to provide small loans to farmers to help them move into new homes.

Zhang says local officials are also planning to
organize villagers to develop forestry and livestock breeding to create jobs, as
the moving of local residents will start later this year.

The county has also invested 40 million yuan (5.87
million U.S. dollars) to help build houses and wells, as well as enhance
infrastructure in the new residential area.

"With the loan and the government's help, my family
can move while I am looking for a job as a driver in the county seat," says
Zhou.

However, Wang Hongying, head of the energy institute
of Shanxi Academy of Social Sciences, says preventing "ecological migrants"
becoming "jobless migrants" is only a small step in solving the problems of
mined-out area.

"To root out the problems, coal mining enterprises
must have clear responsibilities for ecological protection before they start the
business, and they should make a deposit for this according to their output," he
says.