Under cover of darkness, hundreds of trucks brimming with coal crawl along the main street of this river town on the southeast corner of Borneo, a column of headlights burning through billowing dust.
The nightly procession starts about two hours after sunset and presses on until dawn as the trucks ferry their cargo from scores of often-illegal mines in the nearby hills to small ports nestled along the banks. Much of this coal is destined for China to meet that country’s voracious appetite for energy to power its dramatic economic growth.