The toiling coal miners of Iran
Faces blackened by coal, these men seem to have stepped out from a bygone era


Iran's Mazandaran province is only 80 miles from the country's capital, Tehran. But it is a world away from that modern metropolis.
In Mazandaran's mountains, more than 1,200 men spend their days tunneling deep into the ground to extract thousands of tons of coal each month, an important resource for the country's steel industry.
The miners work with dated equipment and in dangerous conditions. Western sanctions have limited Iran's ability to import cutting-edge machinery, while the industry's privatization 10 years ago left the men working longer hours for just $300 per month, The Associated Press reports.
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Below, a look at these contemporary miners stuck in an old-school trade.
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Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
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