These are not rain clouds its coal dust. And all that armor and other its really scary the wind blows coal ash and dust into the village and even in a broad daylight it gets dark you know what its might be very good base work is vital for us we need to paychecks to feed our families for the most of the man who work here have wives and kids get weeded out of southern a big. Op us dollars coggan eightys is 33 years old right now i. Told this and his colleagues are setting up a controlled explosion. He earns 1200. 00 euros a month. Thats not much but hes grateful he has a job. 70 percent of the young people in this region are unemployed. 4 villages were demolished to make room for this mine alone. Made better but my mother was from the village of key toss. It used to be right here where we are now. But the residents had to move to make room for the mine my mother and grandfather lived in advantage. Of that history of the better. Johnnys has worked for the Mining Company for 30 years. He used to make good money so hell qualify for a generous pension. But 10 years ago he had to move out of his home village. To listen to be looked at you know you have only lived on this land for 55 years it was hard for me to leave im 55 years old so it was easier for me than it was for older people who know like my wifes parents are in their eightys of his own loophole they had to leave their land and now theyre stuck in a high rise apartment building. From the top of the shop with them my grandfather used to grow crops on this land and now were destroying it a lot of talk about. This is the i used to me trios coal fired power station located near the mine. Up a stall is his wife to spina works here. She earns just 620. 00 euros a month and her contract is temporary. She hopes that the Power Company will offer her a permanent position. With the company has done a lot of good for people and still does. The entire region depends on the company for jobs that includes businesses that have nothing to do with mining or Energy Production like cafes if the fit their date because they put the every business and all the local residents depend on the Power Company for income a good deal of them to the. Thousands of people in this region have worked for generations for the Power Company in one capacity or another. There are 5 coal fired power plants here spread out over an area that covers about 80 kilometers. In 2009 lignite supplied half of all of greeces electricity. But now thats fallen to less than 30 percent. Most of the power plants are old and inefficient and they create too much c o 2 the e. U. Continues to impose increasingly severe penalties for excessive emissions that makes whole production unprofitable. The e. U. Is also demanding that parts of the Power Company be privatized because of creases economic crisis. This comes at a time when other countries are winding down Coal Production there will almost certainly be job cuts. Though there may be as you live if the coal industry shuts down here a lot of people be unemployed and of them thats scary. But i shudder to think what could happen to them if. I wish my other son could find a job here the thought of big of a lives. My daughter had to move overseas she went to dubai because she couldnt find work in greece of the year for the girl i got a little of him she simply wasnt able to find a job here to live in the field of the. Din of the field. She studied hardly and speak several languages we friend her diploma would lose a. Whole he says that in the past the Mining Company would have provided work for everyone including his brother but now hes worried about what will happen next. Name in. The metal the video when i think about my childrens future. I think it would be better if they shut down most Coal Production with it and if they live and got up because of the pollution and i. Guess yesterday you have to but i think that they want to keep at least some of it if you know. Where im terrified about what would happen if we didnt have coal and he will be minimizing. But the mines continue to expand production and dangerously close to the surrounding villages including acri ne lots of people there have been hard hit by the Mining Companies business practices. Nikos party at c. D. C. Used to work as a subcontractor for the Mining Company providing transport trucks. He was forced to sell his familys orchards to the company in return 440000 euros. But after 10 years his contract was cancelled that he took up farming. But his land is now fenced in and dried up and it belongs to the Mining Company. He had to lease land in order to grow fodder for his cattle. Weve had to do you know what a few of my familys been here for 3 generations we were here before the Power Company wanted to see what. It was we supposed to do now here to. You but ive been out you know. What are your demands i dont want to leave my village but i want clean fresh air. I want those coal fired power plants shut down. Skift oh man im a doctor sometimes i think about just giving up a lot of good but thats hard to do it my god im 54 and i have 3 children and the love of. The situation in our creamy has been on hold for 8 years but nikos still has to find ways to feed his family. He has 20 cows but needs 80 to 100. And there are serious ground clue should problems. About off the up of a few down on you. The company didnt dispose of the coal ash properly they just left it lying around like. That one of the trees on the back of some of my neighbors cows got into it and they went blind on. Your game and i would i think i slowly got 30 i might be my neighbor sued the company for damages and was awarded compensation. The coal ash also contaminated the groundwater with chromium. The villagers took the Power Company to court over the situation. People who still have jobs there dont talk about any of this because they dont want to get into trouble. But the village is divided everyone feels let down and they cant see a way out. Now were on our way to the village of mobs opihi about 20 kilometers away from our queenie theres a coal mine near here to. The village just like a ghost town the result of a botched expropriation and resettlement program. Most of the residents moved out in 2012. Today just a few dogs remain. Taso same on a wheel that used to be the mayor here he stops by occasionally to feed the dogs and to remember the village as a. Used to be. If you go here with 2 families to live here you know there are 2 brothers who are shepherds. They still have their land and they want to stay with their animals or but its knows a lot during the winter here miss is like a border and if the villages cant own from the outside world they want to look after their flock. Theyll go again almost and theres an older couple they had 7 children or any kind of the one of the kids was ill for a long time and then died. They just dont want to leave the village. With us and we think their house is the only one that still has electricity. Theres no Running Water anywhere. To shepards get that electricity from a generator. And they get their water from the animals drinking troughs what this is what is going to get us up but im not giving levy. They carry the water home in buckets for. Them because. The older couple didnt want to talk to us neither did the shepherds. Father because the whole roof this used to be the center of the village. Because i knew who my parents house was over then. It had a cafe to. Work with what i got a little mini mart there was a mini market on the ground floor of my house on the opposite side with or 3 market. One with a theme of a big an echo that i had some income from the cafe and the market that. When people started leaving the village. Both businesses shut down my view with with i think we can compensation for the property. But not for the income that we lost when the businesses closed or some pointers from the from of them. The Power Company went to court appeal the compensation ruling and won the case. The new ruling said that after 7 years people would have to pay back up to 40 percent of the amount that theyd been awarded. But in the meantime some people had bought apartments in nearby towns theyve been waiting since 2012 to be resettled the people of modern opihi filed a lawsuit and the case is still tied up in the courts. My father in laws house was over that the house was torn down in the hole of the levee with no one had used any electricity there since 2015 but we still got power bills and bought off until last month we were getting bills for electricity that we hadnt used. But on top of that hell thora to still charges for local taxes and utilities like water Sewage Treatment and Garbage Disposal of all part of it but he wouldnt even know those services are no longer provided people if you dont pay are youll get into trouble on the vent of often they have poor woman going on behind the back of chaos from start to finish theres just no end to it i think it and. Then as i wrote to the village used to run through here. By him we noticed that a cracker developed and it was getting bigger of course from a guy long it was about 3 and a half kilometers long with remember. The villagers demanded to be resettled before work on the new mines started but taso says that the Company Refused to pay for any relocation expenses. In 2010 there was a landslide here and that was the beginning of the end for the village of moderate pm. Her voice i mean this is all thats left of the courtyard in front of the church of st nick allow which was built on the edge of the village. Ravi a horrific and there were over 50 head tents of forest land there. Taso says Coal Production is still in full swing here. Greece depends on coal for much of its electricity a new 660. 00 megawatt power plant is being built near the village at a cost of 1400000000. 00 euros the project uses German Technology and german financing a 740000000 year old loan from the state owned Development Bank k f w all this for coal fired Power Production thats being phased out in germany. The landslide in mop up he took place in 2010 in the village of a not guilty about 30 kilometers away but there was a landslide in the summer of 2017 also near a coal mine. Or east coast kind of p. T. s house was directly about the big crack. This is our east coast and his son petrus. They continually check on the condition of their home. The ground is still sinking its too dangerous to go inside. To feel. The theyve used their vote the bill is more than that he didnt need they got the Power Company doesnt want to pay compensation because they say theres no lignite here minutes up a look at us all a bit of work you know about us that but the mine is just 300 metres away so they should have known that Something Like this might happen but im its not my job to tell them about any of those recordings cup if you meet with the can with just a good day youre here they should have warned us earlier to loser but ive been again i was born or what but ive been a figure with us weve either thought even what they kind of everyone saw that the cracks were getting bigger and bigger. We complained about it for a month it is you know unique out of the day before the landslide some Company Representatives came out and said that there was no danger of going to settle this case till they started moving their equipment away from the mine can use in the month but im signed cause damage there to have on it the key they both got us that you know with the approach of an amount of soft wood they said today had expected a landslide but nothing like this actually goes from about a full. The company insists that the landslide was a Natural Disaster and was not caused by Mining Operations in any case the company is short of cash so the only hope for the villagers as that theyll get some Financial Aid from the government. And i could put up with your boy night this really hurts we put a lifetime of work into this house and to lose it just like that with me then its tough whats on the cover sleeve need to jaimes support my put up with. Or leave it up were going to show i worked my entire life to buy this house its the only asset i have with this. Situation is just awful. For people who live at the you know the speak all the people around here have moved away going and theyve gone to the town of told them i you do you have to if you were to put up on that i was then you know the time being the company is paying the rent but thats all and i have just finished and. Nobody cared about whether they had enough money to survive their. Actual then is then you know its the gift of this what happens to the older people or large families legal again how they manage money that they have nothing when it begun you but. I reached says that the Power Company believes its making a concession with the temporary rent payments but many people here have lost their source of income petros ran a Blueberry Farm on his parents property but he had to shut it down after the ground there sank 2 meters they held some public protests which provoked a Swift Response from the Power Company is a couple of us are going to be think im certain of what a good guy gets when we held demonstrations for fair compensation and on one occasion we closed down the companys conveyor belts for a while we the numbers of those who then the company filed a complaint against us claiming that we were trying to damage their business thats not going to mean its 10 of us were arrested but then sentenced to 10 months in jail. That was later reduced to probation of up with a good minister like. The honestly. I restate this was sentenced to 3 years probation. Finally the greek government said it would pay 42000000. 00 euros from a state Investment Program to those whose land was expropriated its not clear when the money will be paid the people up on our t. V. Have long since lost their trust in the authorities. This is the home of demolition expert op was stolen n. E. T. s he still has a job and he and his family live in a newly constructed village the land was a gift from his grandfather who in turn got it from the Power Company when business was better but not by no to hold your people in the old phillips there were lots of people they raised crops or had livestock a year going to get a whole year to qualify for resettlement here in the new village they had to sell their land to the company and thats expropriation to me that its tough to start all over when you have no land the few of us who have jobs with the Power Company like me moved here if some others left the country and went to germany or the us we feel that its not maybe. The new village was finished 10 years after the residents land was taken away 2000 people lived in the old village of cletus but only 400 of them still live here the Old Community no longer exists e. U. Funds were used for new Infrastructure Projects including a primary and secondary school but up a stone he says children have to attend classes in a neighboring village the school was shut down because there arent enough children here. The regions entire economy revolves around the Power Company. So are the coal fired power plants a blessing or a curse. The company now owns most of the land around here people like me cause for yet c. D. s who have to make their living from farming but no longer have fields have to buy straw or at least the land from others to grow it. Meanwhile the mine is moving closer to his village the mood here is despondent with. So much. Even because the rubble made them sick the Power Company measures an area on the plane and decided to confiscate it a total of 1250. 00 hectors. Up to 90 percent of the villagers make their living on that land that maintaining. Some raise livestock like sheep most of them grow crops like potatoes and corn. So the company will take away their land whats going to happen to those people well if you thought you got to eat on the grandmother some work for the Power Company does that mean that of the 1200 people in the village 200 have jobs and the rest dont matter. We just sit around here and wait and the Company Keeps playing games with us. Like the not. The local residents have no idea what theyre supposed to do now its not yet clear when they might be resettled and they have to deal with pollution from the mine. Nico says that no one wants to invest in a village thats been condemned to death. When i remember to go meaning were not only surrounded by the mine the water is polluted and the pipes are old and full of is best. But nobody does anything. No one cares and we have to drink that water you know about one or 2. Fortunately for opera star listeners family they can safely drink the water from the tap their home is 25 kilometers from the mine where the parents work. But the spinners family lives right behind the power plant. I was born and raised in that village. But we decided to move here for our children sake. The family get away from the pollution most. Of them he would have preferred to stand a village because thats where our parents live theyd be there for us and they could help with the kids but the air is clean here away from the mighty market up out here in the group where its a double edged sword. Wed like to have jobs and a clean environment. But around here we cant see. It with thank god we have our jobs with the Power Company and were also curtiss. Everyone just tries to do their best with what