Everyone has heard about ancient cities that have ceased to exist — this is the mysterious Angkor in Cambodia and the grandiose Machu Picchu, lost in the mountains Peru. It turns out that Russia also has a city that is gradually disappearing from the face of the Earth…
Berezniki is the capital of karst sinkholes
Meet Berezniki. This city is located in the Perm Region, and its population is about 150 thousand people. It is the second largest city in the region.
It seems to be nothing unusual – a simple industrial provincial city, of which there are thousands in Russia. But he began to gain fame in the world community due to the fact that more than twenty years ago the city began to gradually sink underground.
Berezniki is located in the area of the Verkhnekamsk deposit of potassium and magnesium salts, one of the largest ore reserves in the world. And a significant part of the residential buildings of this city are located directly above the mines.
It is worth noting that the salt mine takes place in a rock that can dissolve in water. Therefore, if water enters such a mine, then trouble cannot be avoided. Dissolving the salt, it will begin to destroy the whole, which are not specially developed during ore mining, and then the salt horizons will hold only due to their strength.
In 1986, the first recorded landslide occurred within the city. That year, there was an accident at the mine, as a result of which one of the mines was flooded. A few days later, a deep sinkhole appeared in a forest plantation near the plant. But that was just the beginning…
Already at the beginning of the two thousandth years, sinkholes began to appear in Berezniki one after another. In 2006, an increase in water inflow was recorded at one of the mines in the city, which forced the management of the Uralkali plant to flood this mine as well. At the site of this mine, in 2007, a sinkhole appeared, which, growing, dragged down a technical salt factory. The locals gave this funnel the name “Big Brother”. Today, this sinkhole is already an entire lake with a size of 500 meters.
Big brother
Big Brother Failure
The failure of Big Brother in Berezniki
School near Big Brother
2010. Not far from the Berezniki railway station, a landslide suddenly occurred, as a result of which one of the freight wagons passing by at that moment turned out to be underground. The city administration tried to bury the resulting cavity, but the railway station was closed after that.
Sinkholes on the tracks near the railway station and the mine construction department
The next large crater formed next to the plant’s management building. It happened in 2011. And in 2012, the first tragic incident occurred in the city. When trying to fill in this sinkhole, which had significantly increased by that time, the funnel sucked in several bulldozers and a loader. Unfortunately, the loader driver could not be saved.
In February 2015, a funnel was discovered in the area of school No. 26 in the city of Berezniki, the diameter of which was about 5 meters, and already in 2018 the size of the sinkhole, called “Pancake”, increased to 27 by 30 meters.
Former school No.26
In 2017, the following funnel was discovered in the area of a private house on Kotovsky Street, the dimensions of which now amount to 10 by 17 meters. And already in 2018, another landslide occurred near this crater. The resulting cavity is slightly smaller than its neighbor, but according to scientists, these two funnels are part of one huge sinkhole.
In total, 8 sinkholes of various sizes have appeared on the territory of the city of Berezniki for all time.
Berezniki dips
Failure in Berezniki
Sinkhole in Berezniki, Perm Krai
Map of sinkholes in Berezniki from the website properm.ru
Map of sinkholes in Berezniki
The technogenic tragedy in Berezniki forces the government of the country to take an unprecedented step – the resettlement of people living near the cavities formed. But this process is progressing quite slowly and many residents are still risking their lives every day, afraid to find themselves in a newly formed funnel.
Alas, in the future the city of Berezniki may completely turn into an “underground” city.
