“煤都”抚顺：因煤而兴，因煤而困

Coal, Which Built a Chinese City, Now Threatens to Bury It
“煤都”抚顺：因煤而兴，因煤而困

FUSHUN, China ― The descent into the pit was steep, and the car skidded down a bumpy serpentine road.

中国抚顺――矿坑的坡度很陡，车在蜿蜒的颠簸道路上向下滑行。

“The road is supposed to be smooth, but last night’s storm and the following landslides make it so rough,” said Cui Yuan, 44, who as the head of the Fushun Geological and Environmental Monitoring Station is in charge of monitoring the landslides, which leave the road littered with coal byproduct.

“路本来是畅通的，可是昨天晚上的暴雨和接下来的泥石流让路很不好走，”抚顺地质环境监测站站长崔原说。崔站长今年44岁，负责监测泥石流的情况。泥石流导致路上到处散落着采煤的副产品。

Toward the bottom of the pit, a decrepit four-story building slanted at a dangerous angle. Half of the tall, thin pillars supporting the conveyor belts that transport coal to the surface were tilted precariously.

矿坑底部附近，一座四层楼高的破旧建筑以危险的角度倾斜着。将煤炭运至地面的传送带由又高又细的柱子支撑着，其中一半摇摇欲坠地歪了。

The few miners at Fushun’s West Open Mine, the largest open coal mine in Asia, were not mining coal but clearing roads blocked by landslides and putting out coal fires, which erupt spontaneously when buried coal is exposed to air for the first time in millions of years.

这座抚顺西露天矿是亚洲最大的露天煤矿。此时矿坑里人数寥寥的矿工并未从事开采工作，而是在清理泥石流堵塞的通道、扑灭煤火。当深埋地下的煤炭数百上千万年来首次接触到空气的时候，便会自燃。

The city of Fushun, one of many so-called coal capitals of China, is struggling. Two-thirds of its estimated 1.5 billion tons of coal has been mined, and today the mineral that helped turn the city into a booming metropolis of 2.2 million threatens to bury it.

抚顺是中国的众多“煤都”之一，目前陷入了困境。该市的煤炭储量估计为15亿吨，其中三分之二已被开采。煤炭曾经助推抚顺成为人口220万的繁荣都市，如今却可能将它埋葬起来。

The coal mines here are winding down and shedding jobs. Decades of destructive mining techniques are causing frequent landslides that threaten to sink the city.

这里的煤矿在缩小规模、削减工作岗位。数十年的破坏性采矿工艺导致威胁城市安全的泥石流频发。

As miners scrape out the last layers of minable coal, buildings near the mine have been abandoned and the city’s underground water pipes are cracking.

矿工挖掘最后的可开采煤层的同时，矿场附近的建筑遭到遗弃，市政地下水管线纷纷破裂。

Today, Fushun produces less than three million tons of coal a year, a drop from a peak of 18.3 million tons in 1962. All five main coal mines here could close by 2030, Mr. Cui said.

抚顺目前的煤炭年产量不到300万吨，距离1962年的历史峰值1830万吨相去甚远。崔站长表示，到2030年的时候，这里的五大煤矿或许会悉数关闭。

At the bottom of the West Open Mine, a 4.2-square-mile pit some 1,000 feet below the surface, coal glistened in the sun. “We are at the lowest point in China,” Mr. Cui said. “We have another 60-meter layer right beneath our feet, but there’s no way we can dig further.”

西露天矿占地面积4.2平方英里（约合11平方公里），底部位于地面千尺之下，煤在阳光下闪着光。“我们现在是全中国的最低点，”崔站长说。“就在我们脚底下还有60米的煤层，但没办法继续挖了。”

Digging deeper would cause more landslides and more damage that the city is ill equipped to handle.

再往深处挖掘可能会导致更多的泥石流和环境破坏，让抚顺无力应对。

When the Japanese occupied the region in the early 20th century, they refilled the pits as they mined to prevent landslides.

日本人在上世纪初占领这一地区时，他们会在开采的同时进行回填，以此防止泥石流。

“But after Chairman Mao came, the open mine only got bigger and bigger,” said Zhang Jun, 52, former head of the project department at Fushun’s Development and Reform Commission, the local agency that oversees economic development. “Since the 1980s, we have been in what I call a ‘savage mode’ of mining.”

“但毛泽东上台以后，露天矿场就越挖越大，”52岁的前抚顺发改委重点项目办公室主任张君说，发改委是监管当地经济发展的行政机构。“自1980年代以来，我们一直处在我称之为‘野蛮开采的模式”之中。”

The state-owned mining companies cut dangerously steep angles into the ground without refilling, a practice that has put Fushun’s future at risk, he said. Landslides now threaten 42.5 percent of Fushun’s urban areas, according to a 2012 government report.

他表示，国有煤矿企业在地下挖出非常危险的陡峭角度，而且不进行填埋，这一做法给抚顺的未来带来风险。2012年的一份政府报告显示，42.5％的抚顺市区面临塌方的危险。

The city has begun refilling part of the West Open Mine with soil from another active mine, the East Open Mine, but it may come as too little too late.

抚顺已经开始用从另一座开采中的煤矿东露天矿(East Open Mine)挖出来的土填埋西露天矿，但这一举措可能来得太晚，而且是杯水车薪。

The damage already done at the West Open Mine is evident. Walking past a sign that warned “Geological Disaster Danger Zone: Do Not Enter,” Mr. Cui pointed to two empty, destroyed buildings about 70 feet below him. “Those sank a few years ago, and it sometimes sinks as many as 20 centimeters a day,” or about eight inches, he said.

西露天矿已经形成的损害显而易见。走过一个写着“地质灾害危险区，禁止入内”的警示牌，崔原指向位于自己脚下70英尺（约合21米）深处两座已经被毁坏的空置建筑。“这些楼几年前沉了下去，它有时一天就可以下移20厘米，”他说。

Just south of the mine, groups of bungalows are half immersed in water. Abandoned factories, shut down because of falling coal production and sinking ground, silently testify to the consequences of unsustainable development.

就在西露天矿南边，可以看到成片的平房半淹在水中。一些因煤炭产量下降和地表下陷而被关闭的废弃工厂，沉默地显示着不可持续的发展带来的后果。

Also sinking is the city’s “vegetable basket,” once the city’s main farming area, some 13,000 acres of once-arable land. Now, 5,500 acres are completely useless, Mr. Zhang said.

同样在下沉的还有这个城市的“菜篮子”，也就是曾拥有约1.3万英亩（约合7.9万亩）可耕种土地的抚顺重点农业区。张君表示，如今这里有5500英亩（约合3.3万亩）土地已经完全无法使用。

Rows of new apartment buildings have replaced the infamous Fushun shantytown, where miners and their families had lived for decades. One of several relocation projects, it had, by the end of 2014, taken in 413,300 former shantytown residents.

一排排新公寓楼，取代了臭名昭著的抚顺棚户区，矿工及其家属们曾在那里居住了几十年。作为几个搬迁安置项目的一部分，这些新公寓楼在2014年底前已经吸收了41.33万前棚户区居民。

But the displaced workers have other concerns.

但是，这些被重新安置的工人还有其他担忧。

“We don’t receive much help finding new jobs, and the old factories don’t have funds to rebuild,” said one woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. She had recently moved with her family, mostly factory workers, from a landslide zone to a new apartment.

“在找新工作方面，我们得到的帮助不太多，老工厂也没有资金进行重建，”一名女子说道，因为担心被报复，她选择匿名。最近，她和大多数都是工厂工人的家人，从一个塌方区域，搬进了一套新公寓。

Although Fushun’s coal was discovered centuries ago, it was not exploited on a mass scale until 1901, during the Qing dynasty. Fushun was near the hometown of the early Qing emperors, and upsetting the land of royal ancestors was considered taboo.

尽管抚顺在几个世纪以前就发现了煤炭矿藏，但它直到清朝时期的1901年才开始进行大规模开发。抚顺离清朝初期几位皇帝的故土不远，打扰皇室祖先的清静曾被认为是种禁忌。

Japan joined the coal rush in 1903, first by renting land and then, in 1931, by seizing it. According to an exhibit at the Fushun Coal Mine Museum, Japan mined 223 million tons of coal here at the expense of nearly 300,000 casualties among Chinese miners before the end of World War II.

日本在1903年加入了煤炭开采的热潮，一开始是租用土地，之后则在1931年强征土地。抚顺煤矿博物馆的一个展览显示，在二战结束前，日本以造成30万中国煤矿工人伤亡的代价，在抚顺开采了2.23亿吨煤。

“But it was the Japanese who laid the industrial foundation for Fushun, and Fushun became a city built around coal mines,” Mr. Zhang said.

“不过，正是日本人为抚顺的工业发展奠定了基础，抚顺成为了一个围绕煤矿发展的城市，”张君说。

Later, under Communist rule, Fushun became a pillar of the Chinese economy, a leading center for not only coal but also the production of aluminum, steel and excavation machinery.

后来，在共产党的领导下，抚顺变成中国经济发展的一个支柱，不仅是主要的煤炭工业中心，也是铝、钢和挖掘机械生产的中心。

Fushun’s decline began in the 1980s, when China’s economic liberalization drive no longer favored heavy industry. Now, mired in a chronic economic slowdown like much of the rest of the country’s industrial northeast, Fushun is grappling with the slow death of the coal mining industry.

抚顺从1980年代开始走向衰败，当时中国的经济自由化进程并不青睐重工业。现在，像中国东北部工业区的许多其他城市一样，抚顺也长期深陷于经济滑坡的泥淖，在努力应对本市煤矿工业缓慢消亡的问题。

“Without reform, the city waits for its doom,” Mr. Zhang said. “With the wrong reforms, the city may be asking to be doomed.”

“如果不进行改革，抚顺只能等死，”张君说。“如果进行了错误的改革，可能就是找死。”

Mr. Zhang has helped draft plans to shift the city’s economy away from its dependence on coal and heavy industry, but progress has been limited because of the enormous costs, which the city can ill afford.

张君曾参与起草抚顺经济改革计划草案，该计划试图使抚顺摆脱对煤炭和重工业的依赖，但他们取得的进步非常有限，因为改革成本太高，这个城市难以承受。

In the long run, Fushun aims to become a consumption-based economy, he said, but given the wave of factory shutdowns, worsening job market, decreasing birthrate and declining population, that transition may not happen soon.

他表示，抚顺的长期发展目标是打造以消费为基础的经济，但考虑到工厂纷纷停工，就业市场恶化，生育率下降和人口减少，这种转变可能不会很快实现。

Fortunately, besides fossil fuel, Fushun has 70 percent forest coverage and rich water resources. In recent years, the city has taken on infrastructure projects outside the industrial center and revived the landscape along the Hun River, which runs through the city.

幸运的是，除了矿物燃料，抚顺还有70%的森林覆盖和丰富的水资源。最近几年，这个城市已经在工业中心之外开启基础设施建设项目，要恢复流经抚顺的浑河两岸的风景。