The fate of a tiny village has sparked heated debate in Germany over the country’s continued use of coal and whether tackling climate change justifies breaking the law. Environmental activists have been locked in a standoff with police who started eviction operations on Wednesday in the hamlet of Luetzerath, west of Cologne, that’s due to be bulldozed for the expansion of a nearby lignite mine. Some stones and fireworks were thrown at officers in riot gear, who could be seen dismantling stalls set up by protesters. Protesters refused Tuesday to heed a court ruling effectively banning them from the area. Some dug trenches, built barricades and perched atop giant tripods in an effort to stop heavy machines from reaching the village, before police pushed them back by force. “People are putting all of their effort, all of their lives into this struggle to keep the coal in the ground,” said Dina Hamid, a spokesperson for the activist group Luetzerath Lives. “If this coal is burned, we’re actually going to take down our climate goals,” she said. “So we’re trying to, with our bodies, protect the climate goals.” The debate flared up hours later at a townhall meeting in nearby Erkelenz, when one regional official accused activists of being willing to “spill human blood” to defend the now-abandoned village. Also Read: Climate activists dig in to defend village from coal mine Stephan Pusch, who heads the district administration, said that while he sympathized with the protesters’ aims, the time had come to give up Luetzerath. The village’s last resident left in 2022 after being forced to sell to utility company RWE. “You’ve achieved your goal. Now clear the pitch,” he said to jeers from the room. Many disagreed, arguing that the village is more than just a potent symbol for the need to stop global warming. Studies indicate that about 110 million metric tons of coal could be extracted from beneath Luetzerath. The government and RWE say this coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security — squeezed by the cut in supply of Russian gas due to the war in Ukraine. Critics counter that burning so much coal would make it much harder for Germany, and the world, to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord. “Nobody wants to be out there in the cold right now, defending a forest or a village,” said Maya Rollberg, a 26-year-old student who had traveled from southern Germany. “But I think that people have realized that they have to do that in order to (protect) future generations.” Dietmar Jung, a retired priest attending the meeting, said he was tired of hearing officials say the law was on the side of RWE. “They keep going back to the legal situation,” he said. “But the right to live doesn’t play a role here (for them).” Pusch, the regional administration chief, warned protesters that intentionally breaking the law wouldn’t help their cause in a country where the violent seizure of power and the horrors of dictatorship are still within living memory. “I’ll tell you honestly that I’m scared my children will grow up in a world that isn’t worth living in anymore,” he said. “But I’m at least as scared of my children growing up in a country where everyone takes the law into their own hands.” “You won’t save the world’s climate on your own,” said Pusch. “(We’ll) only do so if we manage to take the majority of the population with us.” Similar debates over how far civil disobedience can go have taken place in Germany and elsewhere in recent months amid a wave of road blockades and other dramatic actions by protesters demanding tougher measures to combat climate change. Some climate activists say the law is ultimately on their side, citing a 2021 ruling by the country’s supreme court that forced the government to step up its effort to cut emissions. They also note the legally binding nature of Germany’s commitments under the Paris accord. Speaking after the townhall meeting, student Jannis Niethammer acknowledged that the dispute over Luetzerath touches on fundamental issues. “It’s a question of democracy and how do we actually get a democracy to move toward climate protection, toward climate justice,” he said. Janine Wissler, a federal lawmaker and co-leader of the opposition Left party, suggested the way out would be for the government to reverse its decision allowing the village to be razed. “If we want to achieve our climate targets and take the Paris climate agreement seriously, then the coal beneath Luetzerath needs to stay in the ground,” she told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the protest. Wissler criticized an agreement struck last year between the government and utility company RWE to permit mining beneath the village in return for an earlier end to coal use in Germany. Some experts say that, in sum, the deal will lead to higher emissions. “We’re already experiencing droughts, famines and floods. Climate change is happening already,” she said. “And therefore wrong decisions need to be corrected.”

Climate activists pledged Sunday to defend a tiny village in western Germany from being bulldozed for the expansion of a nearby coal mine that has become a battlegroundbetween the government and environmental campaigners. Hundreds of people were expected to take part in protest training and a subsequent demonstration in the hamlet of Luetzerath, which lies west of Cologne next to the vast Garzweiler coal mine. The open-cast mine, which provides a large share of the lignite — a soft, brownish coal — burned at nearby power plants, is scheduled to close by 2030 under a deal agreed last year between the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia and utility company RWE. The company says it needs the coal to ensure Germany's energy security, which has come under strain following the cut in gas supplies from Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Also Read: Canadian polar bears near 'bear capital' dying at fast rate But environmental groups have blasted the agreement, saying it will still result in hundreds of millions of tons of coal being extracted and burned. They argue that this would release vast amounts of greenhouse gas and make it impossible for Germany to meet its commitments under the 2015 Paris climate accord. Prominent campaigners have called on supporters to defend the village from destruction, citing the impact that climate change is already having on Germany and beyond. German news agency dpa reported that some activists have erected barricades and other defensive measures to prevent Luetzerath being razed. Last week, protesters briefly clashed with police at the site. Police have said no clearance will take place before Jan. 10.

Production resumed at Barapukuria Coal Mine on a limited scale Sunday night, ten days before the stipulated time. The Chinese workers resumed the coal production and the full-fledged production will be resumed in a day or two after the local workers rejoin. Managing director of the mine, Engineer Saiful Islam, said the coal extraction remained suspended from July 29 as 106 workers tested positive for Covid-19. Read: Proposal to double launch fares denied However, the coal extraction work from phase 1306 of the mine restarted from Sunday night with the help of Chinese workers, he said. The authorities concerned also collected samples of 213 workers under phase 1041 of the mine on Monday while 100 workers tested negative for Covid-19. Meanwhile, the load shedding in the northern region of the country has increased for the last several days due to the suspension of coal extraction as the authorities concerned of Barapukuria Thermal Power Plant kept one unit operative due to a coal crisis.  

As many as 90 workers of Barapukuria Coal Mine have tested positive for Covid-19, prompting the management of the state-owned company to halt production from Friday afternoon.   Of these 90 workers, 50 are Chinese. Besides, 400 other workers of the mine, have been asked to remain in home isolation, officials said on Saturday, adding that production would resume after 10 days.   Engineer Saiful Islam Sarkar, a manager of the mine, said that coal lifting work from the 1306 phase started on July 26 on a trial basis and till Friday, "we were able to lift 5,000 metric tonnes of coal".   However, 40,000 metric tonnes of coal are in stock, which will be used to aid power generation, said Saiful.   Meanwhile, samples of local workers in the 1041 phase have been collected and those testing negative will be allowed to join work, he added.   Read: No inventory of Barapukuria coal since 2006: Nasrul Hamid

Demonstrating workers of Barapukuria Coal Mine have suspended their two months long movement for returning to work and demanding arrears after getting partial acceptance from the authority. Robiul Islam, President of Barapukuria Coal Mine Miners' and Workers' Union said on Friday night in a meeting the authority agreed to let the workers join work in phases. “Regarding the payment of eight months' arrears a decision will be taken after a meeting with the workers’ representative in Petrobangla in Dhaka,” he said. Also read: Barapukuria coal mine workers continue demo demanding arrears “On Saturday, in the first phase 212 workers’ samples were sent for Covid-19 test. If they test negative they will be able to rejoin work after staying in quarantine for a week to 1o days inside the mine premises,” said Kamruzzaman Khan, Managing Director Engineer of Barapukuria Coal Mine. He said all the 850 workers will be allowed to join work again. The workers have been holding different programmes since March to press home their demands. Robiul Islam Robi, president of Barapukuria Coal Mine Miners' and Workers' Union said,”Around 1100 local miners excavate coal from the mine under three Chinease contractor companies CMC, XMC and JXMC.” Also read: Barapukuria Coal Mine workers give 72 hour-ultimatum for payment of arrears Of them 700 were supposed to get monthly Tk 4,000 each as allowance during their lay off due to Covid-19 pandemic but in the last 8 months they neither received any allowances nor were allowed to rejoin work. Meanwhile, the contracting companies forced 400 workers to stay inside the mine and work without allowing them to meet their families.

All the 20 miners who were trapped in a flooded coal mine for more than 30 hours in north China's Shanxi Province have been evacuated from the shaft safely at around 5:56 p.m. Friday and sent to hospitals for treatment, the local rescue headquarters said. The accident took place at around 11 p.m. Wednesday at the coal mine in Duxigou Village, Xiaoyi City. Illegal mining was blamed for the accident, according to a preliminary investigation. Read: UN leader urges 'concrete' moves on year-end vaccine goal Rescuers on Friday morning established contact with the miners. The first trapped miner was lifted out of the shaft at around 2:15 p.m. Friday.

A devastating explosion in a Siberian coal mine Thursday left 52 miners and rescuers dead about 250 meters (820 feet) underground, Russian officials said. Hours after a methane gas explosion and fire filled the mine with toxic fumes, rescuers found 14 bodies but then were forced to halt the search for 38 others because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire. Another 239 people were rescued. The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies cited emergency officials as saying that there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia. The Interfax news agency cited a representative of the regional administration who also put the death toll from Thursday's accident at 52, saying they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Also read: Russia hits new record for coronavirus infections It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region. A total of 285 people were in the Listvyazhnaya mine early Thursday when the blast sent smoke that quickly filled the mine through the ventilation system. Rescuers led to the surface 239 miners, 49 of whom were injured, and found 11 bodies. Later in the day, six rescuers also died while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine, the news reports said. Regional officials declared three days of mourning. Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Demeshin told reporters that the fire most likely resulted from a methane explosion caused by a spark. The miners who survived described their shock after reaching the surface. “Impact. Air. Dust. And then, we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” one of the rescued miners, Sergey Golubin, said in televised remarks. “We didn’t even realize what happened at first and took some gas in.” Also read: 1 dead, 6 missing at northern Mexico coal mine collapse Another miner, Rustam Chebelkov, recalled the dramatic moment when he was rescued along with his comrades as chaos engulfed the mine. “I was crawling and then I felt them grabbing me,” he said. “I reached my arms out to them, they couldn’t see me, the visibility was bad. They grabbed me and pulled me out, if not for them, we’d be dead.” Explosions of methane released from coal beds during mining are rare but they cause the most fatalities in the coal mining industry. The Interfax news agency reported that miners have oxygen supplies normally lasting for six hours that could only be stretched for a few more hours. Russia's Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the fire over violations of safety regulations that led to deaths. It said the mine director and two senior managers were detained. President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the dead and ordered the government to offer all necessary assistance to those injured. Thursday’s fire wasn’t the first deadly accident at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In 2004, a methane explosion left 13 miners dead. In 2007, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 miners in the deadliest mine accident since Soviet times. In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia's far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analyzed the safety of the country's 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them, or 34%, potentially unsafe. The Listvyazhnaya mine wasn't among them at the time, according to media reports. Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, inspected the mine in April and registered 139 violations, including breaching fire safety regulations.

Fire authorities in Australia are locked in a desperate battle to save a coal mine and a power station on Tuesday, that have come under threat from a massive bushfire northwest of Sydney which local media dubbed the "mega-blaze."