This area, part of the Donbas—short for Donetsky Bassein or “Donets coal basin”—is one of the world’s largest coal mining regions, containing 900 active and inactive mines, as Kristina Hook and Richard Marcantonio reported for the Bulletin in 2018. These mines are on average over 2,300 feet deep and need to be regularly pumped to prevent groundwater from flooding them. Before the conflict began, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources identified 4,240 sites as potentially hazardous, due to methane leaks, hydro-dynamics, biohazards, and radiation.
