German coal miners lights go out as last pit shuts - Report
Financial Times reported that the door slams shut and the pit cage begins its rapid descent, building speed until it hurtles down the mine shaft at a rate of 12 metres every second. Almost a kilometre below ground it shudders to a halt, and Dirk Tomke steps out into the familiar underworld of Prosper Haniel, Germany’s last coal mine. Mr Tomke, a loquacious 47-year-old, has made the journey below ground thousands of times, just like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather before him. All of them earned their pay as coal miners in the Ruhr area, the black-stained industrial heartland of Europe’s largest economy.
However, that journey will soon be over - for Mr Tomke, and for German coal mining in general. Prosper Haniel stopped production in September. On Friday, the mine in Bottrop will be formally closed in the presence of dignitaries from across the country. Germany’s president will receive the last piece of local coal, the fuel that propelled the nation’s economic and political expansion - for good and bad - over two centuries.
For Mr Tomke and his fellow miners, and for the Ruhr as a whole, it will be a sad occasion. “I always loved being a miner,” he said as he rested on a bench in one of the mine’s countless tunnels. “It was tough. It was exhausting. But it was also special. I never wanted to do anything else.”
Mr Tomke started working as a miner in 1988, eventually specialising in the delicate work of expanding the tunnel system with explosives. “Boys and explosives,” he recalled wistfully. “It’s just a natural fit.”
Source : Financial Times