‘I’m not selling’: what happens when an Australian town is consumed by a US coalminer?

Col Faulkner, 68, owns the only house in Wollar that hasn't been bought up by US-based miner Peabody

Bev Smiles usually turns up at least an hour before the start of any functions at Wollar's community hall - a spot for many a dance and committee meeting over the years.

We have to get in early with leaf blowers to get an inch of dust off the floor - every surface in the hall is black," Smiles says. That's what people's kitchens are like."