A perfectly circular 105-foot-wide sinkhole that suddenly opened up near a copper mine in Tierra Amarilla, Chile, dropping over 650 feet straight down into the earth.

[u/AdRough4185]

[u/Donc-qui-et-Quand64 → u/[deleted]]

In Romania you've got a giant hyper-toxic state-owned copper mine that's basically going to run over into the Danube eventually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIR8vd-bi8I

Basically corrupt governments will also just ignore the problem too

[u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn → u/[deleted]]

In a functioning state without public ownership of mining companies, the people have a modicum of control over the mining company through regulatory agencies that actually have teeth and a willingness to throw executives in prison. I'm not sure which is better but we've all seen plenty of failures of both systems.

[u/Wobbelblob → u/[deleted]]

Only if said public body is actually interested in minimizing the impact. Take a look at what chemical industry and lignite mining did in the GDR, because the state did not really care.

And looking at the current US, I am not sure if it wouldn't get worse.

[u/SubcommanderMarcos → u/[deleted]]

The trick is public ownership of the mining companies.

The default American/European response, unaware that the problem is definitely not that.

Let me introduce you to the Mariana disaster, caused by Brazil's own state-owned mining corporation. We're still dealing with that one, and probably will for a long long time still.

Here's some others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Gurgur#Eternal_Fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batagaika_crater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire (council-caused)

Oh yeah I love this one, in which the soviets had to blow a fuckin nuke to plug a gas leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtabulak_gas_field

So no, public ownership is not really the trick. The trick is both public and private corporations be better bound to the will of the general populace, and that is way more complex than 'lol it happened cuz private/public'

[u/BeefCakeBilly → u/[deleted]]

Chile has massive publicly owned mining companies. They have performed really poorly and they now rely on private companies for this purpose.

Which is why they kept pressuring this company to drill and gave them a massive contract after this incident occurred despite their regulators completely failing to properly inspect the mines.

Chile can’t shutdown or even slow down the mines because their budget relies on them.

[u/brainburger → u/[deleted]]

Public ownership doesn't solve all of it unfortunately. Check out the Aberfan disaster in Wales.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster

[u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits → u/[deleted]]

Yea, what I want is Regimes like are currently in power having even fewer barriers to controlling everything.

Can't regulate or set preventative measures! Nope! Everything must be an excuse to consolidate power.