Villagers wait for end to sinkhole hell

Villagers whose houses collapsed as a result of illegal mining in Fengtai district are still waiting for subsidies they were promised by the township government.

The residents had opposed the illegal coal mining beneath Xiyuetai in Fangshan district ever since it began in 2003 but the excavations never stopped, a village security official surnamed Yu told METRO.

And he said things went from bad to worse when about 20 homes disappeared into sinkholes caused by the mines and those that were left standing had massive cracks and structural damage. There were 593 people in 253 households in the village. Most residents in Xiyuetai, which sits on the slopes of a coal mining mountain in the southwest of Fangshan District, were forced to abandon their homes out of fears that the buildings still standing could fall down at any minute.