Indonesia faces environmental time bomb after coal bust
Mining companies fail to pay their share of billions of dollars owed to repair the ravaged landscape they leave behind
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Samarinda, Indonesia
THOUSANDS of mines are closing in Indonesia's tropical coal belt as prices languish and seams run dry. But almost none of the companies has paid its share of billions of dollars owed to repair the badly scarred landscape they have left behind.
Abandoned mine pits dot the bare, treeless hillsides in Samarinda, the capital of East Kalimantan province on Indonesia's part of Borneo island. It is ground zero for a coal boom that made Indonesia the world's biggest exporter of the mineral that fuels power plants. Abandoned mining pits have now become death traps for children who swim in them, and their acidic water is killing nearby rice paddies.
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