COOBER PEDY, Australia — From her front door, Sonya Crombie can see the sandstone hills where White men carved up the land in search of opal and then stayed, turning their mines into elaborate underground homes insulated from the desert heat.
But when Crombie’s air conditioner broke in November just as the scorching summer was about to set in, the ailing 60-year-old Aboriginal woman had no tunnel in which to take refuge. As the temperature in her state-run house topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit, Crombie struggled to breathe. Emergency workers flew her 500 miles to a hospital.
“I nearly died,” she said. “This heat can kill you.”
Words by @mikemillerdc and photography by @tamati_the_yamaji for the @washingtonpost
