How sinkholes are threatening to swallow this Polish town | Focus on Europe

[Applause] J theol were so big that entire buildings collapsed people are afraid for their lives there are a lot of homes here if a house like this collapses someone will die no one knows where it’s still safe Chinia a small City in southern Poland sits above a massive cavity left behind by the coal mining industry and it is gradually collapsing like the giant sinkhole in this property which has been hastily filled In Yan mayki lives a few houses away on John Paul II Street he lives with with his wife and son for whom they mooved to the countryside he’s very worried he’s trying to hold back an irresistible Force I’ve just filled in the soil here everything was level here and now you

Can see that it has sunk again I’m definitely afraid I go to bed and don’t know if the ground will collapse under us the next morning if it’ll be a meter deeper the chinia coal mine was closed at the turn of the Millennium and since then the underground shafts have filled up

With water and softened the ground which has started giving way this graveyard was hit in the summer dozens of graves disappeared into the sinkhole a great shock for Genova katek her family grave was spared but she can no longer visit her husband’s tomb over there where the yellow crane

Is that white gravestone right at the back half the cemetery has been closed over fears of new sink holes it’s hard my husband died just recently all she has left is the photo on her phone and the hope that the graveyard will be restored soon chinia City Hall is in a state of

Emergency some are already talking about evacuation mayor Yos is under pressure to take action we’re paying for the mistakes of the past mistakes made during the underground coal mining phase when the shafts were in operation consequences were forgotten or ignored when I look at all the documents today I

Believe all of this could have been foreseen a number of properties in the town have been cordoned off people are not allowed to enter a state-owned company specializes in cleaning up damage caused by the mines holes are being bored 70 M into the ground the geologists are certain

That their method will prevent future sink Holes we’re going to fill these cavities with a mixture of dust cement and sand to eliminate the possibility of the land sinking in the future we will continue doing this until we are confident that the area is safe for everyone to stay that is our goal and that is what

We are going to achieve pipes like these ones have been sunk in the ground everywhere in chinia and thousands of cubic meters of cement have been poured to fill the cavities the mayor hopes it will help he feels it’s the duty of the Polish state I have no intention of using the

City’s resources to solve a problem over which we had no influence and the consequences of which we are in fortunately suffering now back on John PA thei street Yan mayki visits his neighbor vo kage who recently found cracks in the walls of his small barn the building is older than he is

But the cracks are new tons of cement have already been pumped into the ground on his property but he doubts it will do any good the workers moved on he says before the holes were even full the way they work here you’re not sure if it’s done 100% properly or if

The problem will come back a few days later the ground in his neighborhood caves in again a hair’s bread from an apartment building the residents of chinia continue to live in fear

A former coal mine is behind a growing number of sinkholes that have appeared in a town in Poland, endangering buildings and human lives.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish?sub_confirmation=1

For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/
Follow DW on social media:
►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deutschewellenews/
►Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwnews
►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwnews
►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dwnews_hangout
Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie: https://www.youtube.com/dwdeutsch

#Poland #Sinkholes #CoalMines

49 comments

  1. Same thing happens in Texas, cuz of groundwater pumping from underground aquifers, and might start becoming an issue in US states westward as well. If there's lots more rainfall than historical averages, it makes soil and bedrock shift faster too.

  3. The true-crime-sound effects are too much. This is serious reporting, not some kind of US show with commercial breaks every 15 seconds, right?

  4. Thank you DW for letting me learn something about my country, from a German channel, that I wont learn from the Polish media – also from the "new ones".

  5. There Is at least 1 town, I believe in Pennsylvania, that has been abandoned. Seams of coal in underground shafts are on fire – fire will burn forever, putting off gas that is toxic.

    What is the government doing?

  7. In the north of Brazil, 60 thousand houses sunk because of a mine of salt. In Maceió, a entire neighborhood sank because of the corruption between military dictatorship and Braskem company, that dig to find salt during decades in a area near the cost.

  8. Pumps should never have been turned off and they tunnels should have been backfilled with cememnt. I live in an old mine town and they were when closed , filled in.

  10. Wow I'm actually surprised seeing this topic talked about here. It's a town nearby mine so the local media in the area (meaning newspapers) talked about it a lot but never on national level. I really hope someone in the government finally takes responsibility and helps those people, maybe this video will help spread the word around. This is just another instance of communism times and corruption haunting us all those years later 😔

  11. If you fall in a sinkhole and die, where would you spend eternity?The gospel. Jesus Christ died for your sins, according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Acknowledge your a sinner, ask Jesus Christ to forgive you, put your trust in his finished work on the cross / his shed blood that can cleanse your sin.. and ask him to forgive you and save you. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

  15. As a widow myself, my heart hurts for that poor woman who cannot visit her husband’s grave now. I am an American but have lived in Poland nearly 11 years. This is shocking to see!

  16. I remain astonished at how many people seem to not make the connection between removing things from underground and the subsequent loss of stability that results.

  18. Digging so many and MASSIVE tunnels underneath for yrs is now paying off.
    I only feel sorry for wild or domestic animals…but it will happen all over the corrupted greedy countries.

  23. Didn't they know before purchasing these lands? They should have checked the history of the land better. 🤷‍♂️

  28. Compare to benefits from coal that had Poland people in past it is not problem. Coal was need for create energy, energy used for hotting house, hospital, factories and more energy need for working of internet, if you against using natural resources for producing energy – stop using internet, any other things and go live to forest.

  29. Once the coal mine that was closed they should of poured concrete along all of shafts . Here I see not my problem find out who owned the mine sometimes there's risks in all mining but greed goes way above to think about people living near this mine . Sad its Poland's problem.

  37. This happened in Florida USA a few years ago. A man went to sleep and then he was gone because the sinkhole swallowed him up and they never could find him.

  38. The problem will come back, because their FIX is a poor one… in the town of my birth this is a prevalent problem even to this day because the mines were too retarded to back-fill their tunnels and shafts

  39. Obviously this is video is a campaign against coal mines❗We see through you propagandists❗ Tell us now that sinkholes in Florida are caused by coal mines too. The sinkhole in Poland is small local issue,yet you chose to focus on it instead of for instance electric buses ,cars,bikes getting on fire all over Europe causing huge danger to people❗

  40. Mam nadzieję, że nie wyjdzie Wam z tych dziur jakaś Godzilla. A tak na poważnie, to przesrane. W mojej okolicy powstają zapadliska po kopalniach soli ale są znacznie mniejsze niż te Wasze. Tak to jest jak fundusze na zabezpieczenie wyrobisk (czy jak tam się te puste przestrzenie nazywają) szły do kieszeni partyjniaków i szerokiej grupy dyrektorów. Niestety, wątpie, że w państówce cokolwiek się w tej materii do dziś zmieniło. Jeśli naprawami i odszkodowaniami dziś zajmuję się państwo, to będziecie mieli przeboje.

  42. After closing the mine, it should be filled with so-called backfill. It's kind of like mud (water and dust). Unfortunately, this is often not done due to cost savings. After many years, it is impossible to find the culprits because they are either dead or too old to be held accountable.

  43. This is a textbook example of what we call Cumulative Environmental Impact of a project. In this case the project is coal mining. This is why Environmental Impact Assessments EIAs are necessary before doing real estate developments. I suspect there must be some negligence with regards to conducting the EIAs of real estate projects in this area. Otherwise this should have been avoided.

  44. what ever they mine,mines never clean up,scrap the water,the ground…Should have laws for the mines close properly and pay what people lose.

  49. Williston, ND area has the same type of problem due to tunnels dug by early white settlers going after coal and no maps made. This probably happened in other settled areas in the US too.

Leave a Reply