18/22.- Wallonia: Terril (Slag heap)

The Centre and Borinage regions used to be centres of coal mining, metallurgy and other heavy industries. The Walloon countryside is still studded with slag heaps, here called terrils, piled up with earth and dust carried up from the mines What with shifts in the economy and industry, all mines and many heavy industries have closed and in those regions which have not adapted to change (electronic manufacturing, chemical and pharmaceutical industry, printing) unemployment runs high. Mineheads have now been turned into museums or memorials, or are left to rust.

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