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Shell and Exxon's €5bn problem: gas drilling that sets off earthquakes and wrecks homes
Groningen
has been one of Europe’s richest gas fields for 30 years, and thousands
of people say their homes have been damaged by the tremors that
drilling sets off. Now a class action may finally bring them
compensation – and force a rethink of European energy security
‘Nobody is taking this seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one’ …
Annemarie Heite, whose home in Groningen has been scheduled for
demolition after earthquakes caused by oil drilling. Photograph: Hans
Knikman/Demotix
Lucas Amin
Five
years ago, Annemarie Heite and her husband, Albert, bought their dream
home; a traditional 19th-century farmhouse in Groningen province in the
northern Netherlands.
The couple planned to raise their two young daughters in this charming
corner of the Dutch countryside. “Then, the living was still easy, and
affordable,” Annemarie says, her tone bittersweet and nostalgic. Today,
their house is scheduled for demolition.
Hundreds of earthquakes
have wrecked the foundations of the Heites’ home and made it unsafe to
live in. Annemarie’s biggest fear is the safety of her daughters. She
points to a room. “This is where my children sleep,” she says, “and
everyday I’m just picking up pieces of bricks and stuff from the
ceiling.”
Heite fears that her children may not be any safer at
school. Her daughter Zara goes to a local primary school that has not
been structurally reinforced to withstand strong earthquakes. “I feel
powerless. It feels like I can’t do anything,” Heite says. “It’s not
like I’m a frantic, hysterical person, but nobody is taking this
seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one.”
Next door,
Heite’s neighbour’s farmhouse is already a pile of rubble, which yellow
JCBs are clearing away. “It’s collapsed. It’s gone,” Heite says. “They
lived there for 30 years … and over there behind the trees, they
demolished another house.”
Farmhouses like Heite’s are
disappearing across the Groningen countryside as a peculiar, profound
environmental crisis grips the province. At the heart of it are two oil
companies, Shell and Exxon Mobil,
and a government that, for two decades, denied responsibility for its
actions and ignored the voices of citizens and scientists. The scandal
has already cost the oil companies €1.2bn [£880m], but last month a
landmark court ruling gave the victims fresh hope that their voices
could be ignored no longer. And if they are right, the consequences
could be profound: a compensation bill that could stretch to more than
€5bn in Holland, an energy security headache for Europe, and an
invocation for the world to think about the real cost of burning fossil
fuels.
Hurricane Joaquin has Wreaked Havoc in the Americas / May Impact Europe with Rain and Gusty Winds
Major
hurricane Joaquin never made landfall, yet it has wreaked havoc in the
Americas. It is one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit The Bahamas
as late as October. Winds surpassed 144 knots (165 miles per hour) on October 3, and the hurricane was nearly stationary off of Long Island for nearly two days.
To
the north and west, much of the eastern United States has been soaked
with rainfall for nearly a week, though no state was hit as hard as
South Carolina. Fueled by a relentless flow of tropical moisture from
warm Atlantic waters and from the fringes of Joaquin rainfall totals
surpassed 600 millimeters (24 inches) in what some local authorities
referred to as a “1,000-year event.”
According to Weather Underground, three-day rainfall records were set in Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina.
Hurricane Joaquin, after lashing Bermuda with wind gusts over 60 mph and heavy rainfall Sunday, is heading across the open northern Atlantic Ocean and is expected to transition to a non-tropical low-pressure system by late Wednesday. It may impact Europe with rain and gusty winds.
There
are differences in the computer forecast models in where it will head
with some bringing it towards the United Kingdom, while others take it
in the direction of Portugal and Spain. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD...
In
Poland, three people died and one was injured in the town of Poraj when
a tree limb was blown onto their car," Piotr Cholajda at the state
firefighting headquarters said. He said high winds had downed
electricity lines, leaving more than 100,000 people around the eastern
European country of 38 million without power. The Polish Institute of
Meteorology and Water Management forecast wind gusts on Friday of up to
110 kmh (68 mph) inland and up to 135 kmh (85 mph) off Poland's Baltic
seacoast. Poland's flagship airline LOT cancelled some domestic and
European flights on Friday due to "unexpected weather changes in
Europe".
.....
Death toll in Europe storm rises to 6 as winds blast Poland
By Wiktor Szary
WARSAW
(Reuters) - The death toll from hurricane-force Storm Xaver sweeping
across northern Europe rose to six on Friday when high winds hurled a
tree limb against a car, killing three people, local emergency services
said.
Xaver blasted into northern Europe late Thursday after
disrupting transport and power in northern Britain and flooding east
coast areas in what meteorologists said could prove the worst storm to
hit the continent in years.
Two people were killed in Britain as
winds reached speeds of 225 kilometers per hour (140 mph). A truck
driver died when his vehicle overturned and a man was killed by a
falling tree.
In western Denmark the 72-year-old female passenger of a truck died when the vehicle overturned in howling winds.
In
Poland, three people died and one was injured in the town of Poraj when
a tree limb was blown onto their car," Piotr Cholajda at the state
firefighting headquarters said.
He
said high winds had downed electricity lines, leaving more than 100,000
people around the eastern European country of 38 million without power.
The
Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management forecast wind
gusts on Friday of up to 110 kmh (68 mph) inland and up to 135 kmh (85
mph) off Poland's Baltic seacoast.
Poland's flagship airline LOT
cancelled some domestic and European flights on Friday due to
"unexpected weather changes in Europe".
Thousands of Britons
evacuated from their homes on low-lying east coast areas on Thursday
were warned of further woes on Friday in the form of "exceptionally high
tides" - the most serious tidal surge for more than 60 years.
Sea levels are higher in some areas than during devastating floods of 1953 that killed hundreds along the North Sea coast.
View gallery
People walk during snowfalls caused by hurricane-force Xaver at Old Town in Gdansk, northern Poland, …
Speaking
after an emergency government meeting on Friday, Environment Secretary
Owen Paterson said flood defences strengthened since 1953 had protected
more than 800,000 homes.
.....
Czech officials have said the waters of the Vltava river could reach critical levels in the capital city Prague as torrential rain continued to cause chaos and claim lives across central Europe. At least eight people have died and at least two are missing after heavy rain caused landslides and swelled river waters to dangerously high levels in three countries. Czech officials said the waters of the Vltava river could reach critical levels in Prague and that special metal walls were being erected to prevent flooding. Interim Mayor Tomas Hudecek said they were shutting down eight stations of the capital's subway network and urging people not to travel to the city. Anticipating traffic problems, the mayor said all nursery, elementary and high schools in the Czech capital will be closed today. In the nearby town of Trebenice where a woman was found dead in the rubble after a summer cottage collapsed due to the raging water, authorities discovered the dead body of a man, Czech public television reported. Separately, at least three other people were reportedly missing.
The government of Czech Republic declared a state of emergency across much of the country on Monday. In Prague, the fire brigade erected flood barriers to try to protect the Old Town from the swollen Vltava River, which flows through the Czech capital. Meteorologists said the flooding in Prague and other areas of the country probably had not yet reached their peak. Heavy rainfall has also caused heavy flooding in low-lying regions of Austria - as well as landslides on some mountains. The number of deaths attributed to the flooding rose to two on Monday after the body of a man missing since Saturday evening was recovered. There has been at least one flood-related death in Germany and six in the Czech Republic since the floods hit. The European Commission noted that help would be available to the victims of the current flooding through the European Solidarity Fund, which it set up after the last major floods to hit the region in 2002. "I want to assure those affected and the politicians, too, that the European family will lend support to its member states and help where it's needed the most," said Johannes Hahn, a spokesperson for EU Regional Policy Commissioner.
On Tuesday, at least e10 pople wre confirmeed dead in Czech Republic. About nine others are reportedly missing. Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas declared a state of emergency on June 2 and promised relief aid. The Czech Republic capital, Prague, is preparing for more flooding as the Vltava river is continuing to rise.
In the Czech Republic, firefighters said some 700 Czech villages, towns and cities have been hit by flooding in the last few days and some 20,500 people had to be evacuated. In the country's north, the water in the Elbe reached its highest level overnight and began to recede Thursday.
....
The Telegraph
Aerial footage shows extent of flooding across Europe
Flooding in the German city of Dresden and Czech capital Prague is een from the air, as the death toll due to the floods in Europe rises to at least 10.
9:28PM BST 04 Jun 2013
Aerial footage shows extent of flooding across Europe - Prague V01:19
Another nine people have been reported missing in the floods that have also swept through Austria and Switzerland.
Peak floodwaters coursing out of the Czech Republic were expected to hit Dresden, capital of the German province of Saxony, along the Elbe in three to four days.
Many areas of Dresden were already badly flooded on Tuesday, including some parts of the historic city centre.
Cities and towns in the German states of Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia and Brandenburg were also hit with flooding.
Seven of those killed in the floods were in the Czech Republic, where a man was found dead in the water in eastern Bohemia on Tuesday.
Woman wakeboards along street in flood-hit Czech Republic
Video of a woman wakeboarding through the flooded streets of a Czech town has
provided a rare moment of levity for the Czech Republic as it continues to
battle the worst flooding in over decade.
By Matthew Day, Warsaw
11:01AM BST 04 Jun 2013
The video, which has become an internet hit in theCzech
Republic, shows the 26-year old, known only as Mila, being towed by
a car and skimming along the water-filled streets of the town of Pisek in
southern Bohemia.
“We were going round the town taking pictures and then we saw children
splashing in the water and that gave us the idea,” Radek, the man who made
the video, told the Czech press. “We thought we could go boarding.”
The wakeboarding video came as vast flood waters caused by days of torrential
rain continued to leave a trail of death and destruction across the Czech
Republic, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
The surging Elbe River crested Thursday in the eastern German city of Dresden, sparing the historic city center but engulfing wide areas of the Saxony capital. Residents and emergency crews had worked through the night to fight the floods in Dresden. The German military and the national disaster team sent more support in a frantic effort to sandbag levees and riverbanks as floodwaters that have claimed 16 lives since last week surged north. "Everybody's afraid but the people are simply fantastic and sticking together," said Dresden resident Silvia Fuhrmann, who had brought food and drinks to those building sandbag barriers. The Elbe hit 8.76 meters (28 feet, 9 inches) around midday - well above its regular level of two meters (6 1/2 feet). Still, that was not high enough to damage city's famous opera, cathedral and other buildings in its historic city center, which was devastated in a flood in 2002. Germany has 60,000 local emergency personnel and aid workers, as well as 25,000 federal disaster responders and 16,000 soldiers now fighting the floods. Farther downstream, the town of Lauenburg - just southwest of Hamburg - evacuated 150 houses along the Elbe, n-tv news reported, as the floodwaters roared toward the North Sea.
