It is even strange that I have not written about the Berezniki failures before - it would seem that there is something else to write about if you live here, in the immediate vicinity of the events? The point, perhaps, is that I like to give a complete picture, and not part of a process with an unclear ending. The story of the flooding of the First Berezniki potash mine has no end, although it began more than six years ago, in October 2006. I will not undertake to describe all the processes that took place during this time in the city - this is a voluminous and very complex question - but I will confine myself directly to the near-failure territory and my favorite railway - it suffered from the flood, perhaps more than all the other "participants in the process". Today I will try to tell and illustrate everything from the very beginning, to give a picture in motion. I can no longer rely only on my photographic materials (although they will be in the text) - the territory adjacent to the dips is guarded, it is not easy to shoot in the vicinity. And the scale of holes in the ground is clearly visible only from the air. Almost all the material is taken from the longest thread of the Berezniki forum, today there are 852 pages. So let's get started.
October 2006 Perm region, Berezniki. In the oldest potash mine in the city of the First Potash Mine Administration of OAO Uralkali, water appears in one of the old workings. It took several days to find out that the water in the mine seeps from above, from a layer of post-salt groundwater. A week later, on October 28, 2006, a decision was made to stop the struggle for the mine - there was already experience of such an accident, and he suggested that active actions, and in particular an attempt to pump out water, only exacerbate the situation. Salt dissolves with water, therefore, no one in the world has managed to stop the process of flooding a salt mine. A long process of flooding of the workings began (I will immediately jump ahead and say that it stretched out for more than three years).
To understand why the majority of Berezniki residents reacted very nervously to the flooding, let's take a look at such a map.
This is nothing more than the imposition of the boundaries of workings on the city map. As you can see, the situation is rather sad. Flooded workings stretched under the entire city, excluding only the northern - not the most developed - part of it. Berezniki is a unique city, nowhere else can a huge mine field be combined with a multi-storey residential building (up to 12 floors), which determined all its current problems, they - with a backfill, a flood or without them - would still have crawled out over time. Neighboring Solikamsk also stands above a salt mine, even older than the First Potash mine, but the residential area there is disproportionately smaller, and most importantly, the 9-story houses are placed in a separate zone, under which there will never be workings. And the last difference is that the Solikamsk mine is still in a dry state.
All of the lyrics above refer to the entire minefield. Now, what relates directly to the place of breakdown of the water-protective layer. Water, entering the mine through a breakdown, washes a cavity in salt, sooner or later, depending on the rate of flooding, this cavity collapses, forming a failure. The approximate territory of the breakdown, and hence the failure-hazardous zone, was calculated very quickly, here it is.
Place of the future failure-2, 2004.
This area is directly adjacent to the industrial site of the mine. One problem - here are the main ways of Art. Berezniki, at that time - the only railway exit from Solikamsk and Berezniki. Another card - do not pay attention to the purple lines for now, they all appeared later.
All Berezniki enterprises, except for the suburban mines of Uralkali, and Solikamsk were under the threat of a sudden break in communication with the "mainland". Something had to be done urgently. The solution matured quickly - a small 500-meter railway loop around the perimeter of the danger zone. In December 2006, the branch was built. Until the summer next year she stood idle, but then came in handy.
What about passenger traffic? At the time the flooding began, several electric trains ran from Berezniki - to Yaiva, Kizel and Ugleuralskaya, from Solikamsk - one pair of electric trains to Chusovskaya and PDS to Yekaterinburg. Immediately after finding out the contours of the danger zone, the PDS and the electric trains were transferred to the Berezniki-Sortirovochnaya station. On the diagram above, you can easily find it, it is located twenty kilometers from the city. In the old days, the train reached Sortirovka in half an hour. Specially launched buses needed an hour. In fact, Sorting was not an uncontested solution - it was possible to organize a connection from the Kaliynaya station, which is much closer to Berezniki than Sortirovka. But by 2006, due to prolonged exposure, or rather inactivity, Kaliynaya Street turned out to be completely unprepared to accept a large flow of passengers - the pedestrian bridge fell into disrepair and was destroyed, the station was closed, and the approach from the bus stop was blocked by a fence. If desired, all these problems could be solved, but as a result, no actions were taken to bring Kaliynaya in order either in 2006 or in all subsequent years.
So, neither in 2006, nor at the beginning of the next year, 2007, there were no incidents in the danger zone near the mine. The railway regularly passed freight trains, the bypass was inactive, the mine was slowly filled with water. Thunder struck on July 28, 2007 - a failure formed in the danger zone, 50x70 meters and a depth of 15. According to the general indexing of the Berezniki failures, he gets number 2 after the failure-1986. The failure does not seem so big in the photo, but take a closer look - the building next to it, the ABK of the technical salt factory, is a three-story building.
Emission of gas from failure-2.
The process of flooding, and hence the underground washing, therefore, quite naturally, the failure began to grow. Pictures from August 13th. In the foreground, you can see bypass-1 and the old five-track park. After the formation of the failure, the old tracks began to be dismantled.
Since the summer, despite the failure, they began to let passenger elements from Berezniki to Solikamsk. What just did not go here. Summer 2007 - RA1, 2008 - TEM2 with pass. wagon, 2009 - VL11 with it, 2010 - ED4, RA1. In the summer of 2010, RA2 took place for a short time. After the Kid pass. traffic to Solikamsk was abolished.
Although, in general, the development of the failure was within the framework of the forecast, it still becomes scary to keep a message on a thin thread just a hundred meters from an uncontrollable hole. In September, next to the old bypass, they begin to build a new one, already two kilometers long, on my diagrams it is designated as bypass-2. It is noticeable that the new bypass has moved away at its narrowest point from the old one by only thirty meters - CHPP10 and the brine preparation factory still operating at the industrial site of the mine prevent further retreat. Since both the CHPP and the factory are scheduled to close in the future, the construction of a larger bypass is being postponed to the future - if necessary, the closure of facilities can be forced. By December, bypass-2 was put into operation.
Together with bypass-2, they are building an incomprehensible loop in the forest south of the city, what I have designated as “bypass MK-24”. To be honest, I did not understand what exactly he bypasses and what threats he insures the railway against. However, bypass MK-24 was built and launched in December 2008.
By the late autumn of 2007, the decision to design and build the 53-kilometer bypass line Yayva-Chashkino, the bypass that I call NUBAM, should also be attributed. Many, including myself, then considered this project excessive - in order to bypass a local problem, a huge and expensive bypass loop was built with a seemingly redundant supply, just a couple of hundred meters wide. Nevertheless, subsequent events showed that the bet on NUBAM was the right and timely decision, but more on that later. I will only say about the NUBAM route - such a long distance was required in order to bypass not only the flooded mine, but also all existing and future mining allotments of potash mines, that is, salt under NUBAM will never be mined. This means that any problems associated with the geology of the subsoil are excluded for the road. Very serious and almost unsolvable traditional means Problems.
The gap, meanwhile, continues to grow. November 1, 2007.
November 23, 2007. In the far part of the failure, you can see the "roller coaster" - the lashes of the Nart branch. Unlike the main paths, they were not dismantled, they were simply cut off with different parties danger zone.
January 20, 2008. The old park has already been completely cut off by the sinkhole. The supports of both failed branches are visible, for some time they worked in parallel, then failed-1 was dismantled.
Beginning of NUBAM. In March 2008, a construction base in Yaiva is organized, design work is being carried out simultaneously with the deployment to accelerate earthworks. A year and a half construction of a 53 km bypass begins.
In the summer of 2008, work on the construction of the third disastrous railway was again forced. bypass, but they did not go further than earthworks in the Zyryanka area. The failure almost ceased to grow, and it was decided to abandon the expensive temporary construction (it would be necessary to dig the entire Zyryansk hill, demolish many capital structures at the BKRU-1 industrial site and close CHPP-10).
Big changes in pass. no traffic occurs. The summer one-car “train” is again being launched to Solikamsk. The electric trains are quietly transferred to the Kaliynaya sludge - in Shishi there is simply nowhere to wrap two electric trains at once. Electric trains run from Kaliynaya to this day. Neither the station nor the platform is left there anymore, the transition bridge was demolished in 2007, you have to go around the tracks to get to the train. But it's still more convenient than sitting in Shisha.
June 8, 2008. Panoramic view of the pit area, in the center of the image - the route of the dismantled bypass-1
And the water keeps coming.
December 27, 2008. View from the side of Zyryanka, southern approach to dip-2. A dead-end path goes straight to the dismantled bypass-1, on the right - bypass-2.
January 2009. Panoramic views from the north of the pit-2 perimeter. The water is already very high.
April 2009. Water fills the sinkhole completely and splashes out, flooding the surrounding area. The process of flooding the mine is completed, the sinkhole stabilizes and almost stops growing. Its current size is 380x360 meters.
July 20, 2009. The sinkhole filled with water could be mistaken for a natural lake, if not for the ruins of a factory nearby.
NUBAM is launched in December 2009, according to the tradition already established in Berezniki - ahead of schedule, on the eve of the New Year - on the 20th. January 11, 2010 Sverdlovsk PDS is transferred to NUBAM from Sorting. As before 2006, it will depart from the Berezniki station, however, it will leave not to the south, but to the north. Also, as an experiment, a pair of Kizel-Solikamsk electric trains are being launched through NUBAM. In January 2010, I visited the Solikamsk junction, and then I rode the train. The NUBAM electric train did not last long - it ran almost empty to Solikamsk, and in the spring it was canceled.
On April 5, the unexpected happens - at NUBAM, a wagon wagon derails due to a track ejection. The wild forcing of the construction site makes itself felt. The entire NUBAM is closed for preventive maintenance. But what to do with the Sverdlovsk PDS? There is only one solution left - the train is allowed to go quietly along the old track - to Kaliynaya, past the failure along the 2nd bypass. The difficult situation with NUBAM helped overcome years of caution. Trains ran past the failure for a whole week, then traffic along the large bypass was restored.
Failure-2 April 29, 2010.
May 2, 2010. As in the old antediluvian times, in the passenger park st. Berezniki is the Sverdlovsk PDS and the Solikamsk train.
View from the passenger platform towards dip-2. Even in such a photograph, you can see the lowering of the relief - the paths clearly go down. But there is a sorting hill ahead, there shouldn't be any lowerings. Here, near the hump control room, for several years before, there had been accelerated drawdowns, which for the time being no one paid attention to.
Again, for the umpteenth time, it seemed that everything was settled, settled down. At the very least, but the trains run, the railway works, the failure almost does not fall through and looks like a harmless lake. Quiet life ended in late autumn. In the early morning of November 25, 2010, eight hundred meters from failure-2, a small hole appeared right under the main path. The new failure, the third in a row, popularly called the Kid, was really small at first - only one hopper from the train passing along the tracks got into it. But that was only the beginning.
The kid almost finished off the station. The Sverdlovsk PDS returns to Shishi again (only in May 2011 it was transferred to Solikamsk - a logical decision that could have been made immediately), suburban turntables to Solikamsk are canceled. The station is "cut off" again - the new cut line runs 700 meters north of the old one, all the tracks at the station become dead ends. The through passage to Kaliynaya ceases to exist, it becomes clear how timely NUBAM was built, in those conditions it simply saved the situation. Moreover, about the possibility of new failures next to the old knowledgeable people warned back in 2006. Groundwater, during three years merging through a breakdown of the water-protective strata into the mine, they washed out cavities in the covering salt, in general, the entire underground hydrology near the failure has changed, turning the surroundings into a very unstable and dangerous territory.
November 30, 2010, failure-3.
January 21, 2011. Column of dead ends on cut-off line-2.
RBC recalled the history of the famous failures at the mines of the Uralkali company in the Perm Territory.
City above the mine
The second largest city in the Perm Territory, Berezniki, with a population of about 150,000 people, has gained worldwide fame: over the past ten years, photos of new sinkholes have been regularly appearing on the Web, including a huge crater next to multi-storey buildings.
Berezniki and neighboring Solikamsk, the third largest city in the Perm Territory, are home to the Verkhnekamsk potassium-magnesium salt deposit, which ranks second in the world in terms of ore reserves. The field is being developed by the Russian market monopolist potash fertilizers Uralkali. Much of the city's residential structure is above the company's mines. Uralkali ranks 57th in the RBC 500 rating of Russian business. The company controls about 20% of the global potash fertilizer market
historical funnels
The first known sinkhole happened in Berezniki back in 1986. After the accident at the third mine, one of the mines had to be flooded. Soon, a crater more than 100 m deep formed in the forest near the plant.
More than ten years later, on January 5, 1995, in Solikamsk, in a few seconds, the soil sank on an area of 950x750 m. The depth of the failure was 4 m. The lake and the springs that fed it went underground. An earthquake with a magnitude of 4 points was named as the cause of the event. Under the threat of flooding were the first and second mines, connected by a development, and residential buildings in Solikamsk
Ten year history of failure
In the new millennium, failures in the territory of the potash giant began to appear one after another.
In October 2006 2009, an increase in brine inflow was detected at one of the sections of the first mine in Berezniki. Ten days later, the inflow rate reached 1.2 thousand cubic meters. m per hour. The management of Uralkali tried to continue the work, but to no avail, as a result, it was decided to flood the mine. After that, giant cavities began to appear on the territory of the city. The size of the largest failure in 2008 was 385x270 m, then the city authorities reported
Photo: Press Service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Perm Territory / TASS
In 2010, a failure occurred near the Berezniki railway station, one of the wagons of a freight train passing along the tracks went underground. The cavity was filled in, but the station had to be closed
V 2011 A new funnel appeared next to the plant management. V 2012 During the backfilling of this failure, by that time it had already reached a size of 101x97 m, the loader driver died. Two bulldozers and a loader with a driver were pulled into the funnel
Photo: Press Service of OJSC Uralkali/TASS
In November 2014, a failure appeared near Solikamsk. After the accident at the mine of the Solikamsk-2 mining department of Uralkali, a funnel appeared on the site of the Klyuchiki dacha village, swallowing up several houses. In autumn 2015, its size was 120x125 m
Consequences
The appearance of failures forced the authorities to demolish a number of endangered buildings and close roads. Several neighborhoods of Berezniki were settled. In total, the city needed to relocate 12 thousand people from 99 multi-apartment residential buildings, the TASS agency reported. Russian Railways had to build a new railway line around the failure
7.5 billion rubles were allocated for the resettlement program. For 2.5 billion rubles. 2.5 billion rubles should have been allocated from the regional budget for 2014-2016 for the resettlement of residents from a potentially dangerous zone. from the federal budget and the same amount from the funds of Uralkali
Anomalous culprits
The flooding of a potash mine is not a unique case. In total, about 90 mines are flooded in the world. As previously explained in a commentary to RBC, the general director of the Mining Institute of the Ural Federal District Alexander Baryakh, who was part of working group to investigate the causes of the emergency at the mines of Uralkali, the rock layers above the mine are heterogeneous: above the seams where potassium salts are mined, a large seam rock salts, above it is a 100-meter rock layer saturated with fresh water. It is this thickness of salts dissolved in water that protects the mine from penetration fresh water. However, over the years of work, cracks could form in the rock, and eventually the water was able to make its way.
The Rostekhnadzor Commission named the causes of the accident in Solikamsk in 2014 as a result of the earthquake caused by the collapse of rocks during the accident in 1995. The commission noted that the company could not prevent the emergency. In the accident in 2006, the company's fault was also not found. The Rostekhnadzor Commission recognized the cause of the failure of an unknown geological anomaly.
A number of experts express doubts about the connection between the Berezniki events and earthquakes. “This area is not highly seismic. It is difficult to assume that earthquakes are the cause of what is happening. But perhaps we don’t know something, ”Peter Shebalin, chief researcher at the Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, tells RBC.
He was a member of the government commission to prevent negative consequences In the wake of the man-made accident in Berezniki, Gennady Onishchenko, the former chief sanitary doctor of Russia and now a State Duma deputy, refused to comment on the reasons for the failures to RBC, but drew attention to "huge systemic violations" in the work to determine these causes and when planning the resettlement of people from dangerous areas. He recalls that they were relocated to prefabricated houses: "The houses were built in such a way that it was impossible to live in them." The deputy is sure that law enforcement agencies should deal with the construction of unsuitable housing in advance
Original taken from leksandrych A hair's breadth from failure.
Part two. Endless story.
It is even strange that I have not written about the Berezniki failures before - it would seem that there is something else to write about if you live here, in the immediate vicinity of the events? The point, perhaps, is that I like to give a complete picture, and not part of a process with an unclear ending. The story of the flooding of the First Berezniki potash mine has no end, although it began more than six years ago, in October 2006. I will not undertake to describe all the processes that took place during this time in the city - this is a voluminous and very complex question - but I will confine myself directly to the near-disaster area and my favorite railway - it suffered from the flood, perhaps more than all the other "participants in the process". Today I will try to tell and illustrate everything from the very beginning, to give a picture in motion. I can no longer rely only on my photographic materials (although they will be in the text) - the territory adjacent to the dips is protected, it is not easy to shoot in the vicinity. And the scale of holes in the ground is clearly visible only from the air. Almost all the material is taken from the longest thread of the Berezniki forum, today there are 852 pages. So let's get started.
October 2006 Perm region, Berezniki. In the oldest potash mine in the city of the First Potash Mine Administration of OAO Uralkali, water appears in one of the old workings. It took several days to find out - the water in the mine seeps from above, from a layer of post-salt groundwater. A week later, on October 28, 2006, a decision was made to stop the struggle for the mine - there was already experience of such an accident, and he suggested that active actions, and in particular an attempt to pump out water, only aggravate the situation. Salt dissolves with water, therefore, no one in the world has managed to stop the process of flooding a salt mine. A long process of flooding of the workings began (I will immediately jump ahead and say that it stretched out for more than three years).
To understand why the majority of Berezniki residents reacted very nervously to the flooding, let's take a look at such a map.
This is nothing more than the imposition of the boundaries of workings on the city map. As you can see, the situation is rather sad. Flooded workings stretched under the entire city, excluding only the northern - not the most developed - part of it. Berezniki is a unique city, nowhere else can a huge mine field be combined with a multi-storey residential building (up to 12 floors), which determined all its current problems, they - with a backfill, a flood or without them - would still get out over time. Neighboring Solikamsk also stands above a salt mine, even older than the First Potash mine, but there the area of residential development is disproportionately smaller, and most importantly, 9-story houses are moved to a separate zone, under which there will never be workings. And the last difference is that the Solikamsk mine is still in a dry state.
All of the lyrics above refer to the entire minefield. Now, what relates directly to the place of breakdown of the water-protective layer. Water, entering the mine through a breakdown, washes a cavity in salt, sooner or later, depending on the rate of flooding, this cavity collapses, forming a failure. The approximate territory of the breakdown, and hence the failure-hazardous zone, was calculated very quickly, here it is.
Place of the future failure-2, 2004.
This area is directly adjacent to the industrial site of the mine. One problem - the main paths of Art. Berezniki, at that time - the only railway exit from Solikamsk and Berezniki. Another card - do not pay attention to the purple lines for now, they all appeared later.
All Berezniki enterprises, except for the suburban mines of Uralkali, and Solikamsk were under the threat of a sudden break in communication with the "mainland". Something had to be done urgently. The solution matured quickly - a small 500-meter railway loop around the perimeter of the danger zone. In December 2006, the branch was built. Until the summer of next year, she stood idle, but then came in handy.
What about passenger traffic? At the time of the flooding, several electric trains ran from Berezniki - to Yayva, Kizel and Ugleuralskaya, from Solikamsk - one pair of electric trains to Chusovskaya and PDS to Yekaterinburg. Immediately after finding out the contours of the danger zone, the PDS and the electric trains were transferred to the Berezniki-Sortirovochnaya station. On the diagram above, you can easily find it, it is located twenty kilometers from the city. In the old days, the train reached Sortirovka in half an hour. Specially launched buses needed an hour. In fact, Sorting was not an uncontested solution - it was possible to organize a connection from the Kaliynaya station, which is much closer to Berezniki than Sortirovka. But by 2006, due to long-term exposure, or rather inactivity, Kaliynaya Street turned out to be completely unprepared to receive a large flow of passengers - the pedestrian bridge fell into disrepair and was destroyed, the station was closed, and the approach from the bus stop was blocked by a fence. If desired, all these problems could be solved, but as a result, no actions were taken to bring Kaliynaya in order either in 2006 or in all subsequent years.
So, neither in 2006, nor at the beginning of the next year, 2007, there were no incidents in the danger zone near the mine. The railway regularly passed freight trains, the bypass was inactive, the mine was slowly filled with water. Thunder struck on July 28, 2007 - a failure formed in the danger zone, 50x70 meters and a depth of 15. According to the general indexing of the Berezniki failures, it gets number 2 after the failure-1986. The failure does not seem so big in the photo, but take a closer look - the building next to it, the industrial complex of the technical salt factory, is a three-story building.
Emission of gas from failure-2.
The process of flooding, and hence the underground washing, therefore, quite naturally, the failure began to grow. Pictures from August 13th. In the foreground, you can see bypass-1 and the old five-track park. After the formation of the failure, the old tracks began to be dismantled.
Since the summer, despite the failure, they began to let passenger elements from Berezniki to Solikamsk. What just did not go here. Summer 2007 - RA1, 2008 - TEM2 with pass. wagon, 2009 - VL11 with it, 2010 - ED4, RA1. In the summer of 2010, RA2 took place for a short time. After the Kid pass. traffic to Solikamsk was abolished.
Although, in general, the development of the failure was within the framework of the forecast, it still becomes scary to keep a message on a thin thread just a hundred meters from an uncontrollable hole. In September, next to the old bypass, they begin to build a new one, already two kilometers long, on my diagrams it is designated as bypass-2. It is noticeable that the new bypass moved away in the narrowest place from the old one by only thirty meters - CHPP10 and the brine preparation factory still working on the industrial site of the mine prevent further retreat. Since both the thermal power plant and the factory are scheduled to close in the future, the construction of a larger bypass is postponed to the future - if necessary, the closure of facilities can be forced. By December, bypass-2 was put into operation.
Together with bypass-2, they are building an incomprehensible loop in the forest south of the city, what I have designated as "bypass MK-24". To be honest, I did not understand what exactly he bypasses and what threats he insures the railway against. However, bypass MK-24 was built and launched in December 2008.
By the late autumn of 2007, the decision to design and build the 53-kilometer bypass line Yayva-Chashkino, the bypass that I call NUBAM, should also be attributed. Many, including myself, then considered this project excessive - in order to bypass a local problem, a huge and expensive bypass loop was built just a couple of hundred meters wide, with a seemingly redundant supply. Nevertheless, subsequent events showed that the bet on NUBAM was the right and timely decision, but more on that later. I will only say about the NUBAM route - such a long distance was required in order to bypass not only the flooded mine, but also all existing and future mining allotments of potash mines, that is, salt under NUBAM will never be mined. This means that any problems associated with the geology of the subsoil are excluded for the road. Very serious and almost unsolvable by traditional means of the problem.
The gap, meanwhile, continues to grow. November 1, 2007.
November 23, 2007. In the far part of the failure, you can see the "roller coaster" - the lashes of the Nart branch. Unlike the main routes, they were not dismantled, they were simply cut off from different sides of the danger zone.
January 20, 2008. The old park has already been completely cut off by the sinkhole. The supports of both failed branches are visible, for some time they worked in parallel, then failed-1 was dismantled.
Beginning of NUBAM. In March 2008, a construction base in Yaiva is organized, design work is being carried out simultaneously with the development of earthworks to speed up. A year and a half construction of a 53 km bypass begins.
In the summer of 2008, work on the construction of the third disastrous railway was again forced. bypass, but they did not go further than earthworks in the Zyryanka area. The failure almost ceased to grow, and it was decided to abandon the expensive temporary construction (it would be necessary to dig the entire Zyryansk hill, demolish many capital structures at the BKRU-1 industrial site and close CHPP-10).
Big changes in pass. no traffic occurs. The summer one-car "train" is again being launched to Solikamsk. Electric trains are quietly transferred to Kaliynaya to suck - in Shishi there is simply nowhere to wrap two electric trains at once. Electric trains run from Kaliynaya to this day. Neither the station nor the platform is left there anymore, the transition bridge was demolished in 2007, you have to go around the tracks to get to the train. But it's still more convenient than sitting in Shisha.
June 8, 2008. Panoramic view of the pit area, in the center of the picture - the route of the dismantled bypass-1
And the water keeps coming.
December 27, 2008. View from the side of Zyryanka, southern approach to dip-2. A dead end path goes straight to the dismantled bypass-1, on the right - bypass-2.
January 2009. Panoramic views from the north of the pit-2 perimeter. The water is already very high.
April 2009. Water fills the sinkhole completely and splashes out, flooding the surrounding area. The process of flooding the mine is completed, the sinkhole stabilizes and almost stops growing. Its current size is 380x360 meters.
July 20, 2009. The sinkhole filled with water could be mistaken for a natural lake, if not for the ruins of a factory nearby.
NUBAM is launched in December 2009, according to the tradition already established in Berezniki - ahead of schedule, on the eve of the New Year - on the 20th. January 11, 2010 Sverdlovsk PDS is transferred to NUBAM from Sorting. As before 2006, it will depart from the Berezniki station, however, it will leave not to the south, but to the north. Also, as an experiment, a pair of Kizel-Solikamsk electric trains are being launched through NUBAM. In January 2010, I visited the Solikamsk junction, and then I rode the train. The NUBAM electric train did not last long - it ran almost empty to Solikamsk, and in the spring it was canceled.
On April 5, the unexpected happens - at NUBAM, a wagon-zak derails due to a track ejection. The wild forcing of the construction site makes itself felt. The entire NUBAM is closed for preventive maintenance. But what to do with the Sverdlovsk PDS? There is only one solution left - the train is allowed to go quietly along the old track - to Kaliynaya, past the failure along the 2nd bypass. The difficult situation with NUBAM helped overcome years of caution. Trains ran past the failure for a whole week, then traffic along the large bypass was restored.
Failure-2 April 29, 2010.
May 2, 2010. As in the old antediluvian times, in the passenger park st. Berezniki is the Sverdlovsk PDS and the Solikamsk train.
View from the passenger platform towards dip-2. Even in such a photograph, you can see the lowering of the relief - the paths clearly go down. But there is a sorting hill ahead, there shouldn't be any lowerings. Here, near the hump control room, for several years before, there had been accelerated drawdowns, which for the time being no one paid attention to.
Again, for the umpteenth time, it seemed that everything was settled, settled down. At the very least, but the trains run, the railway works, the failure almost does not fall through and looks like a harmless lake. Quiet life ended in late autumn. In the early morning of November 25, 2010, eight hundred meters from failure-2, a small hole appeared right under the main path. The new failure, the third in a row, called by the people the Kid, at first was really small - only one hopper from the train passing along the tracks got into it. But that was only the beginning.
The kid almost finished off the station. The Sverdlovsk PDS returns to Shishi again (only in May 2011 it was transferred to Solikamsk - a logical decision that could have been made immediately), suburban turntables to Solikamsk are canceled. The station is again "cut off" - the new cut line runs 700 meters north of the old one, all the tracks at the station become dead ends. The through passage to Kaliynaya ceases to exist, it becomes clear how timely NUBAM was built, in those conditions it simply saved the situation. Moreover, knowledgeable people warned about the possibility of new failures next to the old one back in 2006. Groundwater, which drained into the mine through a breakdown of the water-protective strata for three years, washed out cavities in the cover salt, in general, all underground hydrology next to the failure changed, turning the surroundings into a very unstable and dangerous territory.
November 30, 2010, failure-3.
January 21, 2011. Column of dead ends on cut-off line-2.
According to official data provided by the press service of the city administration, there are six failures in Berezniki. In total, there are eight failures on the territory of the Verkhnekamsk potash and magnesium salt deposit - along with the very first one, in 1986, which happened at the Berezniki potash mine administration (BKRU) No. 3 and a failure in Solikamsk.
The sinkholes in Berezniki have "names" given to them by the locals.
"Distant relative", 1986
The failure was formed in the forest, north of the salt dump. In 1988, the depth was 105 m, in 1992 - 74 m, in 2000 - 52 m. In the area of the sinkhole, measuring instruments were installed to monitor the subsidence of the earth's surface. After this failure in Berezniki from 1993 to 2005, several hundred man-made earthquakes with a magnitude of 2 to 5 points were recorded. The Mining Institute made a forecast: from 2003, an increase in underground movements is expected, with a peak in 2006.
"Big Brother", 2007
The failure was formed on July 28, 2007 as a result of an accident at the mine of the First Bereznikovsky Potash Mine Administration. In October 2006, an increase in brine inflow was detected at one of the sections of BKRU-1. After failed attempt to resume work, the company's management decided to flood the mine. On October 28, 2006, the pumping of brines was stopped, people were brought to the surface.
The dimensions of the failure, according to the latest data, are 446 by 339 m. The dimensions are stable and have not changed since July 2009.
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"Kid", 2010
On November 25, 2010, a new failure occurred at the Berezniki station, which is located above the flooded BRU-1. As a result, transit through the Berezniki station was stopped. In 2011, the sinkhole was filled up, but it was not possible to restore the operation of the station, the soil continued to fall. Russian Railways and the state spent a total of about 12 billion rubles on the construction of bypass railroad tracks.
"Baby", 2011
On December 4, 2011, to the north of the building of the administrative and amenity building of the Berezniki mine construction department, a new failure occurred measuring 10 by 15 meters. Now its dimensions are 135 by 144 meters.
"Gymnasist" ("Piglet", "Pancake"), 2015
On February 17, 2015, in the area of the former school No. 26, a crater was found on the earth's surface with a diameter of 5 meters. This is the sixth failure in the mine fields of the Verkhnekamsk potash and magnesium salts deposit and the fifth in the territory of Berezniki. Director of the Mining Institute, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Baryakh said that, perhaps, subsidence will go towards Reshetov Square at the checkpoint of BKPRU-1 of Uralkali OJSC and that two more hazardous areas, outside the city: near the village of Zyryanka and beyond. On February 25, 2015, the size of the funnel was 6 by 7.5 m. In 2018, according to the latest data, the size of the failure, nicknamed “Pancake” (since it was formed around Maslenitsa), “Gymnasist” (since next to the school), “ Piglet (since the fifth in Berezniki) is 27 by 30 meters.
"Kotya", 2017, 2018
The failure was formed in the zone of panels of the transitional period (near Kotovsky street on the outskirts of the city). The processes in this zone are developing in accordance with the forecasts made in 2014 by scientists from the Mining Institute of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and OAO Galurgiya. The local deflection of the earth's surface here was formed in 2015. In 2017, a crater was discovered near the settled private house No. 33 on Kotovsky Street. Its dimensions are now 10 by 17 meters. On April 18, 2018, next to this funnel, a funnel was formed with dimensions of 4.5 by 7.5 meters and a depth of about 3.5 meters. According to scientists, this funnel is a continuation of the processes characteristic of the formed shear trough and coincides with the forecasts of scientists made in 2014. That is, these funnels are part of one failure. This area was fenced off in 2015, the houses were settled, access by outsiders is prohibited.
In addition to the Berezniki failures, there is "Summer resident"("Scrooge", since the Solikamsk Mining Administration), which was formed in 2014 in Solikamsk.
It's impossible not to say
In a long disastrous history, there are several facts that cannot be passed by, one cannot pretend that this did not happen, although the leadership of the country, the Perm Territory, the city of Berezniki and the enterprise succeed in this.
But without these moments, the picture of failures would not be complete.
"This is our cow"
year 2001. First Deputy Governor of the Perm Region Anatoly Temkin in 2001, he told Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “ According to seismic surveys, since 2003, an increase in underground movements is expected, with their peak in 2006. So there is a maximum of five years left to prevent a possible tragedy.". Uralkali and the authorities of the Kama region accused the authorities of the country of failing to fulfill their obligations to lay voids under the city. Temkin explained to Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the country's government was ready to allocate funds from the federal budget, but in exchange for a stake in OJSC Uralkali. And the Permian authorities will not agree to such conditions, Tyomkin said categorically:
Anatoly Temkin, former First Deputy Governor of the Perm Region, in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta:
- The voids near Berezniki were built up over decades - at a time when Uralkali, like all other enterprises, was state-owned. And the number of voids accumulated after the privatization of this enterprise is an order of magnitude lower than that which was accumulated during the years of the USSR. It is unfortunate that federal officials have taken such a position towards us. It turns out that the entire burden of financing the work falls on us and Uralkali. We will decide how to finance the laying of mines from the regional and local budgets.
Everything " attempts to extort money from the federal budget", according to the leadership of the region and Uralkali," failed". As Vice Mayor Bereznikov told local journalists Igor Papkov, Minister for Civil Defense and Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu to the request of the Berezniki responded as follows: When it happens, then we will help". This most "happens" was not long in coming.
Thus, the heads of the enterprise, city, region, heads of relevant departments and ministries at the country level knew what would happen. They also knew that there was an underfilling of voids, that a tragedy was possible in 2006. But no one prevented it.
Income growth of Dmitry Rybolovlev
Due to failures, Uralkali's income did not decrease, but grew. Meetings of shareholders were held not to discuss how much money the company will spend on eliminating the negative consequences of accidents and failures, but to pay dividends.
Thus, on November 2, 2006, the Board of Directors of OAO Uralkali decided to convene an extraordinary meeting of shareholders, at which it was decided to pay dividends based on the results of 9 months of 2006. $130 million (90% of the company's profit) was paid out. At that time, Dmitry Rybolovlev controlled at least 80% of the shares, that is, he received about $ 100 million.
At the same time, 250 million rubles (9.8 million dollars) were allocated from the regional budget, which were allocated for the resettlement of residents of 29 houses that fell into the emergency zone. Plus, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation issued a loan of 700 million rubles ($25 million) to the region.
According to the results of 2007, Rybolovlev rose from 17th to 14th place in the rating of Russian billionaires, according to the Finance magazine, and Uralkali's net profit increased 2.3 times. The same trend was observed in 2008. For six months, net profit increased 3.6 times and amounted to 13.795 billion rubles. 8.498 billion of them were decided to be used as dividends (at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders). 65.6% of the company's shares belonged to Madura Holding (controlled by Rybolovlev), which means that the oligarch received about 5.5 billion rubles (more than $215 million) on the eve of the crisis.
In June 2008, Rybolovlev bought from Donald Trump-senior villa in Palm Beach, Florida for $100 million. In 2010, Rybolovlev acquired world art masterpieces by spending $2 billion, luxury real estate in Europe, Dubai and the US by spending $1 billion, the Monaco football club ($200 million for the purchase), yachts, AIRBUS 319 and Falcon aircraft. His daughter turned out to be the owner of the most expensive apartment in New York (an apartment in Manhattan with an area of approximately 626 square meters for $ 88 million). In 2013, Rybolovlev bought from his granddaughter Aristotle Onassis two islands in the Ionian Sea - Skorpios and Sparti for $100 million.
The same act
2008 Commission Sechin. The Government of the Russian Federation decided to conduct an additional investigation into the causes of the accident at the mine. Finding out the extent of the subsoil user's fault was one of the tasks. Why was another check needed two years later? Firstly, the previous conclusions about the causes of the accident and failure were made by specialists from Galurgiya, which is closely associated with Uralkali. There was no particular trust in them. Secondly, the government commission "to prevent the negative consequences of a man-made accident caused by the flooding of the Uralkali mine in 2006 was headed by the Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev. In general, he played an important role in protecting Uralkali - for example, the commission, which he headed, called the causes of the accident " complex of technogenic and geological factors". Trutnev himself said that Uralkali has " ethical responsibility».
No, not only ethical. And this was confirmed by a new commission created on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation Igor Sechin.
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The result of the work of the experts was the "Act of Investigation of the Causes of the Accident that Occurred at the First Berezniki Mine of OJSC Uralkali in the Period from 17 to 28 October 2006". Not all Perm mass media published information from this Act. The document shows that, if desired, the state could easily not only bankrupt, but simply nationalize the enterprise in the form of compensation for the damage caused. And Uralkali itself could have avoided the accident if " conducted in-depth research", if " carried out work aimed at preventing accidents».
From the conclusion of the commission it follows that the cause of the accident is an anomaly geological structure associated with technological factors. The anomaly of the geological structure was revealed as a result of in-depth studies. It took them less than two weeks in difficult post-accident conditions (November 2006)! The Commission comes to the conclusion that the subsoil user did not conduct in-depth studies to ensure a normal technological cycle of work and forecast dangerous situations. Moreover, he did not conduct these mandatory studies even on especially important and creating increased risk plots. Although Uralkali had the financial opportunity to conduct these studies.
From the “Act of Investigation of the Causes of the Accident that Occurred at the First Bereznikovsky Mine of OJSC Uralkali from October 17 to October 28, 2006”:
« The subsoil user was aware of the increased risk factors that could lead to an accident and (or) increase the need for in-depth studies - about two-layer mining, the presence of unlaid chambers, the existence railway, the absence of a security pillar under it, the absence of softening zones».
Officials of the subsoil user and JSC Galurgiya, interviewed by members of the commission, said that in order to prevent an accident, it was necessary to increase the volume scientific research.
General manager JSC "Galurgia" Arkady Grinberg to the question whether the institute had assessed the implemented security measures in the period from 2000 to the date of the accident when the degree of loading of the pillars was exceeded, he answered that after 2000 the assessment of the implemented security measures was not carried out, since no tasks were received from the customer.
The commission also found out that the subsoil user's adjustments in regulations were not made, thus sufficient measures to prevent the accident were not taken.
Everybody's Free! And busy again
year 2012. Dissolution of the government commission Yuri Trutnev. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation has published a draft decree on the liquidation of the government commission to prevent the negative consequences of a man-made accident at the BRU-1 mine in Berezniki, Perm Territory. The government commission started working in Berezniki in 2007. Berezniki was regularly visited by representatives of the federal and regional governments. But shortly before his resignation, the Minister of Natural Resources and chairman of the commission, Yuri Trutnev, expressed the opinion that its further work was inappropriate.
year 2013. A government commission was re-established, and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation became its chairman. Arkady Dvorkovich.
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They wanted to abolish the commission in the summer of 2018, but in early August 2018, the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kobylkin and Governor of the Perm Territory Maxim Reshetnikov agreed to resume the work of the government commission to prevent the negative consequences of the man-made accident in Berezniki. Officials concluded that effective solution tasks to eliminate the consequences of the accident, it is necessary to resume the work of the commission on the accident in Berezniki. The commission consists of 24 people, and its chairman is Arkady Dvorkovich. Following the results of the last meeting of the commission in May 2017, the Perm Territory received a state subsidy in the amount of 1.25 billion rubles for the resettlement of Berezniki residents from the zone of a man-made accident.
Taking advantage natural resources, a person often does not think about what his activity can lead to. But sometimes such intervention turns into dire consequences. Very bright to that an example is the large Ural city of Berezniki, which literally goes underground. It is dotted with gigantic failures that look terrifying and bewitch at the same time, but meanwhile the ground in different parts of the city continues to subside. Alas, people are not able to stop this process yet.
Once there was a sea
The city of Berezniki is located in very picturesque places. These edges are very ancient history. Archaeologists have discovered here the settlements of people of the Mesolithic era, dated 12-6 millennia BC. Lived here at a later time ancient people, who was the ancestor of modern Komi-Permyaks, and in the XIV-XV centuries Russians began to move here from the European part of our country and mix with local tribes.But about 300 million years ago, according to the assumptions of geologists and historians, there was a sea surrounded by tropical forests on the site of the city of Berezniki.
However, let us return to more recent times. The development of salt deposits, led by the Stroganov brothers, began in these places as early as the time of Ivan the Terrible.
The name of the city was given by Poboishchny Island, which was also called Beryozov. It was closer to the left bank of the Kama, but over time, the water between it and the "mainland" was covered with sand, as a result of which a tract was formed, named after the island - Berezniki.
A treasure trove of natural resources
After the revolution, the development of salt deposits in this area began to go at an accelerated pace. A well appeared near the city of Solikamsk, and geologists discovered huge reserves of potassium, magnesium and table salt. It is precisely with the fact that once there were sea expanses with lagoons and reefs that modern scientists attribute the presence of these natural resources underground.In 1929, after the discovery of the Verkhnekamsk potash deposit, the Bereznikovsky chemical plant was built nearby. And in 1932, several local workers' settlements were merged into one locality- the city of Berezniki. Subsequently, it became the second largest city in the Perm Territory.
For several decades, three mines have appeared in Berezniki, and at present the city actually stands on top of mine workings.
When laying mines, workers experienced difficulties associated with a high degree dampness, in connection with which, back in the 1970s, some scientists began to sound the alarm, warning about the risk of subsidence and the destruction of residential buildings in the city. However, underground work continued. High-rise buildings were erected above the mines.
The city is gradually sinking into the ground
Since the 1990s, the city has been experiencing a real disaster: in Berezniki, accidents at mines and man-made earthquakes happen every now and then. Brine streams of very strong power and ground water mine workings are flooded, and the walls of multi-storey buildings above them are covered with cracks.
The first sinkhole, which, according to eyewitnesses, was accompanied by a gas explosion and powerful flashes of light, happened in Berezniki in 1986. He cut a forest stream near the accident and formed a small waterfall, as well as a funnel more than 100 meters deep. Other failures followed. The width of these funnels is from several tens to hundreds of meters.
Some city buildings had to be resettled and given emergency status, and we were talking about entire blocks. V different time the local railway station, school and Orthodox church were damaged.
At the same time, it is beautiful and eerie to look at the giant failures, like holes, penetrating the city. Filled with water, they resemble either strange lakes, or bizarrely shaped funnels from meteorites.