{"id":40040,"date":"2022-01-24T08:01:39","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T08:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=40040"},"modified":"2022-01-24T08:01:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T08:01:39","slug":"thelkoloi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2022\/01\/24\/thelkoloi\/","title":{"rendered":"Thelkoloi: another tailings failure, this time in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thelkoloi: another tailings failure, this time in India<\/h4>\n

On Thursday 20 January 2022 another tailings failure<\/a> occurred, this time at Thelkoloi in Odisha, India.\u00a0 The failure has been reported in some of the media in India, but not more widely.\u00a0 For example, the Hindustan Times reports<\/a> that the failure was in a slurry pond from the JSW Bhushan Power and Steel Limited works in Sambalpur district.\u00a0 It suggests that a tailings pond wall was breached, releasing tailings that inundated 20-30 acres (8-16 hectares) of farmland near to the village of Banjhiberana in Rengali block.<\/p>\n

There are images of the event in the Hindustan Times:-<\/p>\n

\"The

The aftermath of the tailings failure at Thelkoloi in India. Image from the Hindustan Times.<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile New Indian Express has an image from a different angle:<\/a>–<\/p>\n

\"The

The aftermath of the tailings failure at Thelkoloi. Image from New Indian Express \/ EPS<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The level of damage is not clear, but there are various reports that a security guard was killed, and others that two security guards are missing.<\/p>\n

The precise location of this event has not been reported in a manner that is easy to find, and I cannot track down other references to Banjiberana in Thelkoloi.\u00a0 However, based on Planet Labs<\/a> imagery, the following looks to be the most likely candidate:-<\/p>\n

\"Planet

Satellite image, collected on 22 January 2022, possibly showing the aftermath of the tailings failure at Thelkoloi. Image copyright Planet Labs<\/a>, used with permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

If this is the correct site then the location is 21.753, 84.036.\u00a0 The steel works is to the west, and this is clearly a waste storage facility.\u00a0 It appears that waste has spilled out towards the southeast<\/p>\n

In the total scale of tailings failures this is a comparatively small event with a limited impact.\u00a0 Nonetheless, it is yet another example of poor management of mine waste – as I have noted previously, these events are far too common.<\/p>\n

The event at Thelkoloi comes on the back of another mine waste failure, also poorly reported, that occurred on 24 December 2021 at the Zululand Anthracite Colliery (ZAC) anthracite coal mine in South Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, BBC Countryfile ran a set of stories yesterday<\/a> about the legacy of coal mining in the UK, including an excerpt about the ongoing hazard posed by spoil tips in South Wales.\u00a0 Included in the programme is an interview with me about the hazard.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Reference<\/h4>\n

Planet Team (2022). Planet Application Program Interface: In Space for Life on Earth. San Francisco, CA. https:\/\/www.planet.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgement<\/h4>\n

Thanks to Tjaart de Wit for highlighting the event in South Africa.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thelkoloi: another tailings failure, this time in India On Thursday 20 January 2022 another tailings failure occurred, this time at Thelkoloi in Odisha, India.\u00a0 The failure has been reported in some of the media in India, but not more widely.\u00a0 For example, the Hindustan Times reports that the failure was in a slurry pond from the JSW Bhushan Power and Steel Limited works in Sambalpur district.\u00a0 It suggests that a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":40043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[469,5,299,870,205,30675,230],"class_list":["post-40040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-featured","tag-india","tag-mine","tag-mine-waste","tag-mining","tag-south-asia-south-africa","tag-tailings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}