Take a second to look at this picture and assess the scale of this device. Compare it to the side of the hillside it's carving into, and the factory on the horizon. This what's known as a bucket wheel excavator, and is the largest vehicle ever constructed by humankind. There's no doubt that it's an incredible feat of engineering, but it's also an incredible tool of destruction.
In the image, you can see the debris created by the excavator being deposited into a bucket. Every single one of those buckets is capable of holding up to 200 tons of weight. The purpose of the machine is to rip through earth quickly so that miners can access whatever minerals lay below the earth. Sometimes that will be fuel, and sometimes that will be precious stones. In either case, it's done with complete disregard for the landscape, the plants and the creatures that live in that earth.