Fires raging below ground in India’s coal mines are being detected and tracked by satellite.
More than 70 fires are burning in the 450 square kilometres of the Jharia coal fields in northern India, making life hard for the villagers who live above them. Fires can burn for decades, until all the coal is exhausted. One fire has been burning since 1916.
The conventional ground-based surveys needed till now are difficult and time-consuming. “Satellites allow us to look deep into these inaccessible areas,” says Rashi Agarwal at the Harcourt Butler Technological Institute in Kanpur, India. Her team used free thermal-imaging…
