3rd place
bronze star award
Erik Messori
title
The real cost on indial coal
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entry description
This project has been shot in the State of Jharkhand, aims at pointing out the inhumane conditions in which the indian workers live. Jharkhand, the second worldwide producer and supplier of coal is destroying entire forests and the life expectancy of its workers in order to satisfy the increasing demands of progress. Second only to China, India extracts from its land a sufficient quantity of coal for its own energy and transport use and enough to also export worldwide. 90% of the mines are open-cut, where incessant digging and spontaneous combustion of coal are releasing incalculable amounts of carbon monoxide, a major cause of global warming. Jharkhand was once an agricultural zone and is now entirely restructured for coal mining, also entire forests have been destroyed in order to make room for this savage extraction. Many people are unemployed and unable to cultivate the fields as the waterways are contaminated with polluting agents derived from the combusting coal. The millions of people without economic possibilities are forced to work illegally, in unsafe conditions and with the government police always in toe. The escalating pollution from coal mining endangers the local population to the risk of very serious respiratory diseases including various types of tuberculosis, lung cancer, tumours, and occlusions of the respiratory airways together with blood diseases and cardiac dysfunctions caused by the inhalation of carbon monoxide, all of which leads to an average lifespan that does not exceed 50 years. New villages are springing up in close proximity to the open-cut coalmines, with devastating consequences for the population, as many people live without basic hygienic-sanitary infrastructures, lacking in running water and a sewage system.about the photographer
Erik Messori is based in Italy. He began his photographic career with local newpapers in his native Italian region. In 2003 he began working freelance for publications such as: National Geographic Italia, Vogue Italia, Private Magazine, Wired Magazine Italia, La Lettre de la Photographie, Photojournale, Vision Magazine, The Australian, Out of Focus Magazine, Bite Magazine, Visura Magazine, Corriere della Sera, and PeaceReporter Magazine.. He cooperates with News International and A.N.S.A. During career I have photographed International stories in Albania, Kosovo, India, Chernobyl, Belarus, Bangladesh, Italy, Vietnam and Australia, as well as the war of Camorra in Naples and earthquake in Aquila in 2009. my Chernobyl work was published in the book CONNECTIONS ACROSS A HUMAN PLANET of Photojournale.back to gallery