Tourists experienced the Coal Mine Tour in a teaching mine used for security training in Yuncheng Vocational and Technical College in Yuncheng, Shanxi province. Tourists wearing mining caps with headlamps walked along the lane inside the mine on August 12, 2015. [Photo/CFP]

To most of us, coal mines are a mystery. On August 12, many tourists experienced a unique "Coal Mine Tour" at a teaching mine used for security training in Yuncheng Vocational and Technical College in Yuncheng, Shanxi province. Shanxi province is a major coal-mining area of China.

This teaching mine provides a real coal mining environment for security training, practical teaching and mining research. Hongyuan Coal Group Corporation invested almost 200 million Yuan ($31.1 million) to build this teaching coal mine and it meets the highest standards of modern coal mines. The mine is equipped like a standard medium-sized coal mine in China, and the scale of the shaft and engineering lane is 1:1 with real mine. This teaching coal mine is equivalent to a coal mine with a production of 3 million tons annually.