Description

The salt at Khewra reaches the surface, it was discovered as early as

the days of ALEXANDER THE GREAT. According to a legend there was a
battle between ALEXANDER THE GREAT and RAJA PORO in this area. After
Alexander had won the battle, the soldiers were restsing. They soon
mentioned, that the horses were licking the ground in a certain area.
Here the salt reached the surface and the ground contained more salt
than in general, which the horses found out.
Long ago the locals started to mine the salt on the surface, in small
opencast mines. In 1872 Dr. WARTH, a renowned British mining
engineer, built the first tunnel at ground level to access the salt layers.
He introduced room and pillar mining which is used until today. At the
moment salt is mined in 19 different levels, producing about 325,000
tons per year.
The salt mined in Khewra - which is often called the biggest or
second biggest salt mine in the world - is primarly used for industrial
purposes. More than half of the production, 200,000 tons per year, are
sold to Imperial Chemical Industries ICI Soda Ash Khewra. Other
customers are Ittehad Chemical Limited at Kala Shah Kaku and
various tanneries. A certain amount of salt of the purest quality,
called rock salt, is sold as table salt in the country and abroad,
especially to India. A small amount is used to produce fancy goods like
salt lamps, vases, and ash trays. They are sold at the tourist mine, but
also exported in large quantities. The Himalayan Rock Salt Crystal
Lamps are somewhat notorious.
Khewra mine and the tourist mine are operated by the Pakistan
Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC). It is operating four salt
mines and four collieries, producing 13% of the countries coal and 52%
of the salt. The underground salt mines are located at Khewra, Warcha
and Kalabagh in Punjab, and there are salt quarries at Jatta and
Bahadurkhel in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). It is
operating and continually developing the tourist mine and establishing
an Asthma Resort for speleotherapy, or better halotherapy. The newest
improvements are a reception centre for tourists and a new walkway to
the mine entrance.
The mine is visited on a very long tour. Visitors enter the mine on
foot, and it takes 1,5km to reach the salt. The mine is entered through a
long 5m high and 7m wide passage with rails on the floor. The rails are
from a mine train, which is used to carry the salt, but there are also
tours which enter the mine on an original mine train from 1930.
 Inside the mine are various attractions. Fascinating is an enormous
chamber called Assembly Hall, which is 75m high. Other chambers are
filled with brine, water saturated with salt. It is lighted indirectly, which
gives it impressive colours. An area with pink salt is called Shish
Mahal.