Geological disaster: China's coal mining villages are sinking
After decades of reckless coal mining and lax enforcement of environmental legislation, 655,000 residents in the Shanxi province in northern China will be moved by the end of 2017, at a cost of 15.8bn yuan (£1.7bn) as villages begin to sink and houses subside. Many villages have already been abandoned, deemed too unsafe, while residents in others shore up walls with tree trunks and attempt to fill the sinkholes caused by years of irresponsible mining processes. China is planning to close 1,000 mines in 2016 alone.

Tree trunks and rocks are set up to support a leaning wall of Li Yonghua’s damaged cave house in Helin village of Xiaoyi, in China’s Shanxi province. People here are trying to patch up their houses, rebuild walls and fill sinkholes caused by decades of coal mining.

Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters