Shell and Exxon's €5bn problem: gas drilling that sets off earthquakes and wrecks homes
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/10/shell-exxon-gas-drilling-sets-off-earthquakes-wrecks-homes
Groningen has been one of Europes 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
Shell and Exxon's 5bn problem: gas drilling that sets off earthquakes and wrecks homes
Lucas Amin
Saturday 10 October 2015 05.00 EDT
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. Annemaries biggest fear is the safety of her daughters. She points to a room. This is where my children sleep, she says, and everyday Im 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 cant do anything, Heite says. Its not like Im a frantic, hysterical person, but nobody is taking this seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one.
Next door, Heites neighbours farmhouse is already a pile of rubble, which yellow JCBs are clearing away. Its collapsed. Its gone, Heite says. They lived there for 30 years
and over there behind the trees, they demolished another house.