Press
A cavity has been discovered under the foundation of a multi-story building in Essen near an old mining tunnel. 83 residents have to leave – in the middle of the night.
Essen – 83 residents of an apartment building in Essen left their homes overnight due to mining damage. A cavity was discovered beneath the house and the stability of the building was no longer guaranteed, said Essen fire department spokesman Nico Blum. The fire department operation began at around 10 p.m. and ended at around 3 a.m.
Underneath the multi-storey building in the Freisenbruch district lies the entrance to a more than 100-year-old ventilation tunnel from the mining era, a city spokeswoman explained. The mining authority carried out exploratory drilling there last week. The cavity was discovered during this process. After a thorough inspection, building control experts ordered the evacuation of the building on Friday evening.
It was extremely unpleasant for the building’s many elderly residents to have to leave their homes late in the evening without warning and possibly for a long time, said the spokeswoman. The evacuation was generally peaceful, but some residents initially did not want to leave their homes.
According to the city, 33 people were accommodated in a hotel that is also used for refugees. Some residents in need of care were temporarily placed in hospitals. The majority were accommodated privately by friends and relatives. The fire department assumes that the people will not be able to return to their homes for weeks.
Daybreaks are not uncommon
In the Ruhr area, several thousand kilometers of shafts and tunnels run through the earth. Surface collapses occur again and again. These are mining damage that is visible on the earth’s surface. Some people remember the hole in Bochum-Wattenscheid. In 2000, a 500 square meter crater formed in a residential area, and two garages sank into it.
Active coal mining in Germany came to an end in 2018 after more than 200 years. Long after that, the former operating company RAG continues to receive thousands of reports of mining damage to buildings as a result of coal mining and the cavities at great depths.
Mining damage is financially regulated by RAG and repaired by specialist companies. For example, in 2014, as part of the regulation, a primary school building that had sunk and become unsteady was hydraulically raised by almost a meter. Claims for compensation for mining damage expire within three years of the damage becoming known. dpa
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