In 2005 when National Geographic channel called for film proposals from Asia, all documentary filmmaker Umesh Aggarwal could think of was the plight of the villagers in Jharia in Jharkhand. One of the largest producers of bituminous coal in the country, Jharia’s claim to fame has been overshadowed by the coal mine fires in about 66 of its mines, that have been raging on for close to a century. “It’s a disaster on more than one level. The fire has access to unlimited fuel, something we can ill-afford. Moreover, the entire village is located atop these mines. Which means when the coal burns down to ash, the ground on which the city is based on, becomes vulnerable and cannot hold up. There have been innumerable cases when it has given way and claimed lives,” says the 43-year-old, whose last film, The Whistle Blowers, picked up the National Awards for the best investigative film in 2007.

The idea of the coal mine fires appealed to the jury too when Aggarwal travelled to Singapore to present his case. Out of the 3,000 applications sent in, 11 were shortlisted and Aggarwal and Sanjeev Sivan, the co-director of the movie, Underground Inferno, set about their task. Apart from the plight of the five lakh-odd population in the Jharkhand district, the fact that coal mine fires were a global phenomenon and one of the reasons behind global warming was also taken into consideration, and the two decided to focus on Jharia as well as Centralia, a small place in Philadelphia, about three hours away from New Jersey. “In the early eighties the US government relocated the entire village because it faced a similar predicament. Only 14 people stayed back. When we went to film the place only 11 people were alive and we captured the human story from the perspective of this 35-year-old who acts as a keeper of this small forgotten place,” says Aggarwal, who is also the producer of the movie.

The two directors also travelled to Germany, to a place near Munich for a potential solution to the problem. Scientists there had come up with a satellite device to map the movement of the underground fire, something which is being considered a revolutionary technique to tap the movement of the fire. “If a tragedy does occur in Jharia, the scale is bound to be enormous, because of the volcanic foundation of the town. This new satellite technique can at least alert people of a potential disaster,” says Aggarwal. The movie premiered on National Geographic channel this month.