Shell drilling damages many beautiful ancient buildings

This video from the Netherlands says about itself:

Nicolette Marié about Shell wrecking province of Groningen

22 May 2015

Tens of thousands of homes have already been damaged, some have even been demolished. Age-old buildings are propped up with shores. The future of hundreds of thousands of Groningen people has been changed forever.

Should gas extraction continue at this rate, we risk more severe quakes, with higher ground accelerations. The houses, apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, churches, offices and factories in the North-eastern part of the province and a large part of the city of Groningen cannot withstand such forces.

Should a severe quake occur near one of the larger cities, such as Delfzijl, Hoogezand-Sappemeer or Groningen, lots of buildings will collapse, resulting in deaths and injuries.

To prevent this from happening, 152.000 houses and 18.000 other buildings need to be reinforced. A quake proof building code has been drafted, and based on this code reinforcement will cost at least 30 billion euro. That is a lot of money for a few old bricks. Better use it to save a bank (ABN Amro) and place a few old boys from the network in convenient spots. To govern is to predict – every multinational knows that.

Translated from Dutch NOS radio today:

Large cracks, subsidence and crumbled pieces of wall. Not only homes have been damaged by the gas drilling, also monuments are injured. So, Groningen Provincial Council at the initiative of the Socialist Party caucus therefore on this Heritage Day demands extra attention for the damaged monuments.

This afternoon Provincial Council members will travel along with residents of Groningen with a bus along several damaged monuments. “We are going along beautiful gems that have one thing in common: damage by gas extraction,” Sandra Beckerman, chairwoman of the SP provincial council caucus, told NOS Radio 1 news. “We will pass an old farm, a wheat processing windmill and a church dating from the twelfth century.” …

The majority of the monuments in the earthquake area is damaged. “In the heart of the area there is almost no monument without damage. There 90 percent of the nationally recognized monuments has been damaged,” said Staten. “The city of Groningen alone has 153 damaged national monuments. Then I’m not even talking about the municipally recognized monuments.”

Some monuments are also homes. “For example, we will visit a windmill in Westerwijtwerd” said the SP politician. “Next to the mill is a miller’s house, where a couple used to live. But because during a major earthquake the mill might fall on the house, the house is uninhabitable. Those are serious things.”

In total there are in Groningen a hundred thousand people with damage to their homes. “One of them said aptly last week: if your home is broken, actually your skin is broken as well. It touches people deeply”, says Beckerman.

Related articles

• Shell billionaires claim ‘not enough money’ to repair homes they damaged
• Avocets, spotted redshanks and seals
• Marienburg plantation, Suriname