'Smart mines' show coal deeply embedded in China's future

One hundred metres underground inside a pit in northern China, miners extract lumps of coal with the flick of a finger on a smartphone.

The Hongliulin "intelligent mine" in coal-belt Shaanxi province is a flagship facility in a drive to modernise China's thousands of coal mines. Smart mines are common in other coal-producing nations like Canada, but China has lagged and now the government is aiming to achieve basic digitalisation of all mines by 2035.