Slope mining

Slope mining is like digging a big hole in the ground to get to valuable things like coal, but instead of going straight down like a straw, the hole goes sideways like a slide. It's like making a tunnel in the side of a mountain.

To start, people use big machines to make a wide and flat area on the ground, called a bench. Then, they dig a sloping tunnel into the mountain from the bench. The tunnel is dug at an angle, so that it goes into the mountain but also goes down a little bit at the same time. This helps people move things out of the tunnel easier.

Once the tunnel is dug, people use more machines to dig out the coal or other valuable things from the walls of the tunnel. They take the coal out and put it onto machines that will carry it up the tunnel to the surface.

Slope mining is a good method for getting valuable things out of the ground because it's safer than going straight down like a straw. It's also easier to move things out of the tunnel because the tunnel goes down a little bit.