Poland: When the ground opens up
A former coal mine is behind a growing number of sinkholes that have appeared in a town in Poland, endangering buildings and human lives.
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00:00 [explosion]
00:07 The sinkholes were so big that entire buildings collapsed.
00:11 [explosion]
00:14 People are afraid for their lives. There are a lot of homes here.
00:18 If a house like this collapses, someone will die.
00:25 [explosion]
00:28 No one knows where it's still safe.
00:33 Chebienia, a small city in southern Poland, sits above a massive cavity left behind by the coal mining industry.
00:41 And it is gradually collapsing.
00:47 Like the giant sinkhole in this property, which has been hastily filled in.
00:55 Jan Majewski lives a few houses away on John Paul II Street.
01:00 He lives with his wife and son, for whom they moved to the countryside.
01:04 He's very worried. He's trying to hold back an irresistible force.
01:10 I've just filled in the soil here. Everything was level here and now you can see that it has sunk again.
01:17 I'm definitely afraid.
01:21 I'm going to sleep in bed and don't know if the ground will collapse under us the next morning.
01:27 If it'll be a metre deeper.
01:34 The Chebienia coal mine was closed at the turn of the millennium.
01:38 And since then, the underground shafts have filled up with water and softened the ground, which has started giving way.
01:47 [explosion]
01:50 This graveyard was hit in the summer.
01:53 Dozens of graves disappeared into the sinkhole.
01:56 A great shock for Jenowefa Kowalczyk.
01:59 Her family grave was spared, but she can no longer visit her husband's tomb.
02:06 Over there, where the yellow crane is, that white gravestone right at the back.
02:12 Half the cemetery has been closed over fears of new sinkholes.
02:16 It's hard. My husband died just recently.
02:24 All she has left is the photo on her phone and the hope that the graveyard will be restored soon.
02:31 Chebienia's city hall is in a state of emergency.
02:34 Some are already talking about evacuation.
02:37 Mayor Jarosław Okorczuk is under pressure to take action.
02:42 We're paying for the mistakes of the past.
02:47 Mistakes made during the underground coal mining phase, when the shafts were in operation.
02:54 Consequences were forgotten or ignored.
02:59 When I look at all the documents today, I believe all of this could have been foreseen.
03:07 A number of properties in the town have been cordoned off.
03:12 People are not allowed to enter.
03:18 A state-owned company specializes in cleaning up damage caused by the mines.
03:23 Holes are being bored 70 meters into the ground.
03:26 The geologists are certain that their method will prevent future sinkholes.
03:33 We're going to fill these cavities with a mixture of dust, cement and sand
03:39 to eliminate the possibility of the land sinking in the future.
03:44 We will continue doing this until we are confident that the area is safe for everyone to stay.
03:50 That is our goal and that is what we are going to achieve.
03:55 Pipes like these ones have been sunk in the ground everywhere in Chebienia
04:00 and thousands of cubic meters of cement have been poured to fill the cavities.
04:05 The mayor hopes it will help. He feels it's the duty of the Polish state.
04:11 I have no intention of using the city's resources to solve a problem
04:19 over which we had no influence and the consequences of which we are unfortunately suffering now.
04:29 Back on John Paul II Street.
04:32 Jan Majewski visits his neighbor Wojciech Kramarz,
04:35 who recently found cracks in the walls of his small barn.
04:39 The building is older than he is, but the cracks are new.
04:43 Tons of cement have already been pumped into the ground on his property,
04:47 but he doubts it will do any good.
04:50 The workers moved on, he says, before the holes were even full.
04:55 The way they work here, you're not sure if it's done 100% properly
05:00 or if the problem will come back.
05:05 A few days later the ground in his neighborhood caves in again,
05:11 a hair's breadth from an apartment building.
05:16 The residents of Chebienia continue to live in fear.