Sinking households given new lease on life in mining region

Sunshine spread on the piece of vast field where glossy watermelons reflected the rays like shining stars.

Eight workers lined up to pass watermelons to a man standing beside a truck. He lowered his body and flung the melons, one by one, onto the truck. Unimaginably, this land of harvest was once hazardous and sinking, because intense coal mining hollowed the earth below.

Since the 1950s, Shizuishan in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region was one of the country's top 10 coal production regions. Its yields of more than 500 million metric tons of coal have generated about 200 billion yuan ($32.5 billion).