Rotowaro is of one of New Zealand's largest coal-mining operations. In 1984, when I first set foot in the place, Rotowaro supported a community of 400 people. I continued to visit Rotowaro over a twenty year period, taking photographs, recording oral histories and collecting artefacts. The story traces the life and death of the mining community following the announcement of its closure, and observes the expanding opencast mine that eventually swallowed the land on which the township was built.