More than 400,000 people who reside in Jharia are living on land in danger of subsidence due to the fires, "Jharia township is on the brink of an ecological and human disaster." Most of the population are illegal coal scavengers. Many children who do not go to school work as coal pickers to earn money for their families which is less than ?1 a day by collecting coal from the mine in Jharia, one of the most important coal mines in India and one of the largest in Asia. Jharia, Bihar, India.