Village victims

Liu has petitioned multiple levels of government: from her village committee right up to the State Bureau of Letters and Calls in Beijing in October. Her family lent about 100,000 yuan ($16,525) to the private Shuihou steel plant.

Liu's neighbor, surnamed Chen, has a son and a daughter who both once worked at the mill. Today the young man is unemployed, while the daughter found a job outside the area.

Their family ploughed about 400,000 yuan into the plant. Chen would not reveal her full name.

The sky was darker before, Chen says. "You could taste the coal and smoke."

Like many in the area, the Shuihou steel mill was a small, private operation. Environmental protection did not feature prominently in the firm's short-term portfolio. Now the villagers who rented out the land are left to clean up the mess.

"We put our whole life's earnings into that steel mill," Chen says. "We hope the government can do something about it."

The Shuihou village committee building, once a bustling government office, is now vacant and littered with trash. The committee members vanished, villagers say. The former factory owner does not answer his phone.

"The most difficult issues are paying debt and solving land disputes," an anonymous official from the Kaiping district government in Tangshan told the Economy and Nation Weekly in December.

Kaiping officials wrestle daily with the issues of unskilled, unemployed villagers searching for work. The district's economy relies heavily on heavy industry and declining opportunities.

Most of the disused industrial land is unfit for farming. In the case of Shuihou, the abandoned factory building remains standing after it closed in April. Demolishing the factory will not necessarily make that land usable or profitable.

"The fields provided us with food and job opportunities before the factory opened," Chen says. "Now we can't go back to farming anymore and we have to find new jobs."