130-year-old Chinese fire put out

A fire that broke out more than 100 years ago at a Chinese coalfield has finally been extinguished, reports say.

In the last four years, firefighters have spent $12m in efforts to put out the flames at Liuhuanggou colliery, near Urumqi in Xinjiang province.

While ablaze, the fire burned up an estimated 1.8m tons of coal every year, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.

Local historians said the fire first broke out in 1874, Itar-Tass reported.

Hou Xuecheng, head of the Xinjiang Coalfield Firefighting Project Office, said the Liuhuanggou fire was the largest among eight major coalfield fire areas in Xinjiang.

The burning coal emitted 100,000 tons of harmful gases - including carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide - and 40,000 tons of ashes every year, Mr Hou told Xinhua.

The continuing blaze is also thought to have caused environmental damage to the region.

Xinjiang accounts for 1.8 trillion tons, or 40.6%, of China's total coal reserves.



BBC

Why didn't they ask for outside help? That kind of pollution seems like it would affect more than just China.

OMFG! I CANT BELIEVE THIS. 100+ years?!? I am really speechless......Stupid commies! ARRGG. 1.8m tons of coal a year. How many Cars is that! Man I am pissed off right now gotta log off and cool off........

If so, I must really be living in the dark! I've always been interested in the world and the paranormal etc. But in all sincerity never heard this one.

So please...tell me this isn't for real.

E

1. Yes, the pollution from China�s coal consumption is huge. Chemicals like barium, sulfur dioxide, mercury and arsenic from China�s coal fired power plants are routinely picked up in monitoring stations in Hawaii, Alaska, and the west coast.
   
   
2. sardion2000, the Communists have only been in power for a little over 50 years. This fire predates them by quite a bit.
   
   
3. Yes this is very real. Coal field fires are notoriously hard to put out. There is one in Pennsylvania right now that has been burning since 1961. Take a look at this site for some awesome pictures.
   

sardion2000, the Communists have only been in power for a little over 50 years. This fire predates them by quite a bit.

I didn't realize Coal fires were that hard to put out. I thought it was due to negligance over 50 years of rule that kept it going but hearing about the one in Pennsylvania i don't know now. Still pissed off about it though....

Originally posted by sardion2000
OMFG! I CANT BELIEVE THIS. 100+ years?!? I am really speechless......Stupid commies! ARRGG. 1.8m tons of coal a year. How many Cars is that! Man I am pissed off right now gotta log off and cool off........

Underground coal fires can be a natural phenomena, there is an underground coal fire in Burning Mountain Nature Reserve, in northeastern New South Wales (Australia) that is an estimated 5,500 years old and still burning. The ability to fight these fires is limited but there are some new developments that look promising. The loss of a natural resource is never to be taken lightly, but this phenomena has probably been occurring periodically for millions of years.

www.abc.net.au...

Very interesting.

You dont hear about these type of disaster towns/sites all that often, I mean in school you heard about Chernobl in Russia, but thats all that I can remember off the top of my head.

Thanks for the good reads.

i found this story remarkble,nice find well bad find if you know what i mean,all that fossil fuel wasted just goes to show you theres things all the time turning up that youve never heard of!

Regards.

Yes, this is very possible.

Even ash dumps take decades to cool down. We have a few here in SA and as kids were warned to stay off the dumps. Even so some kids got badly burnt. The dumps are surrounded by fencing, but as you know kids will be kids.

By the way optimus fett, I love your avatar.

Now that is a story i would have never imagined to here something like that going on for so long. Thanks for sharing.