Mining under Twilight

[Mohoender]

It must be my yearly Thread generating frenzy but I was watching a report, two days ago, about Kivu (DRC) and tin mines there.

These mines are in very remote areas only reached after long and harrassing walks. Miners there are ransomed daily by legal forces and rebels alike. Their work looks exactly as if it was the result of indenture service and they are almost working with bare hands. Some of the mines go down 300 meters and the miners only use hand tools and strengthen the mines with wood.

I think that it would exactly be the conditions of mining under T2K. In regions such as Silesia, Southern Germany or parts of England (where some sort of legal government has been established/surviving), by 2000, several mines would probably remain in activity and older ones could be put back in activity.

Work in these would be close to hell and the quality/quantity of extracted minerals would be low but existing nonetheless. As in the mines in Kivu, a team of two men could probably extract 20-30 kg daily.

Their equipments would be made of ropes, hand tools, bags and some sort of light source (probably alcohol generated light). Pay could be better and food more readily available to miners but life expectency would be very short. Working in these mines would be dnagerous to put it mildly.

I know, we already discussed that but it's the first time I run into something depicting a situation that could compare to that of T2K.