Air cargo the area surrounding the city and thus land access. As this access was closed, in the so-called Berlin blockade, an airlift remained the only option to get increasingly urgent deliveries of food, coal, and other supplies to West Berlin. Over 330 days to 12 May 1949 a total of 2.26 million tons of cargo were airlifted to Berlin, an average of 6,800 tons a day, 80% by the US and 20% by the UK. Although freight traffic developed modestly, reaching only 800,000 tonnes worldwide by the mid-1950s, the world economy was hitting its post-war stride. Germany and Japan were emerging
Coal mining in the United States increased to 773 million short tons. In 2016, US coal mining declined to 728.2 million short tons, down 37 percent from the peak production of 1,172 million tons in 2008. In 2015, 896.9 million short tons of coal were mined in the United States, with an average price of $31.83 per short ton, worth $28.6 billion. "1 short ton = 0.907184 metric tonnes" The three regions producing the largest amount of coal are Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, the Appalachian Basin and the Illinois Basin. In the United States, coal production declined from 2008 but the decline was