An aerial view of the Tagebau Hambach coal mine in Germany, and the equipment used to carve into the earth. The Excavator 288, a mobile mining rig, is gargantuan, approximately a hundred meters tall and 200 meters long. The mine itself is kilometers long and wide. The floor of the mine is below the undisturbed ground level by more than half the rig’s height. Outside the mine is a green plain of former farmland, and inside the mine is a dusty plain of exposed dirt. It is truly difficult to convey the scale of the scene in words.

Download link

Notices where this attachment appears

Eric A. Meyer (meyerweb@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Jan-2023 03:07:01 JST Eric A. Meyer

I’d been hearing about the coal-mine protests in Germany, but this photo by Sean Gallup is the first that gave me a real sense of the titanic size of the thing and what’s being protested. Just… unreal.

In conversation Friday, 13-Jan-2023 03:07:01 JST from mastodon.social permalink