In November last year, residents of Russia learned thatin Solikamsk, Perm region, a huge dip in the ground was discovered. It was not a joke and not a joke - in the photographs from the scene in the ground, a giant funnel of an almost perfect circle gaped.
Solikamsk can be called the salt capital of Russia. Here are: the oldest salt mine, a museum and a monument of salt. Now a new landmark has appeared here - the Solikamsk failure.
Chronicle of events
18 ноября 2014 года на шахте «Соликамск-2» an accident occurred - groundwater began to flow. Part of the pumps was flooded with brine (a mixture of salts and water), and at 13:50 Moscow time, a decision was made to introduce an SSN (emergency response plan). 120 mine personnel were immediately brought to the surface. Explosive hydrogen sulfide was supplied to the mine along with the brine, so the power supply was turned off.
В трех с половиной километрах от жилых домов в Solikamsk, on the site of an old, unexploited company mine, on the same day discovered a failure, the dimensions of which at that time were 20 by 30 meters.
Place of events
The Ore Administration of Solikamsk-2 is a factory forproduction of potassium chloride and, in fact, the mine itself. The mine is part of the company Uralkali. Its owners are Mikhail Prokhorov and Uralkhim, headed by Dmitry Mazepin. Part of the shares belongs to a Chinese company.
Uralkali is one of the leading mining companiespotash fertilizers, supplying to the market about 20% of their world volume. The accident, which stopped the work of the Solikamsk-2 mine, led to the collapse of the company's shares.
The village near Solikamsk, where the failure was formed,stopped the work of the mine "Solikamsk-2", is called Klyuchiki. It is located above the abandoned mine workings, a few kilometers from the city limits and residential developments.
Causes of what happened
Now experts are working tofind out what caused the formation of Solikamsk failure: man or natural factors? If we talk about past similar incidents, they were partially due to the violation of technology. The average life of potash mines is about 50-60 years, and over time they all turn out to be flooded by groundwater. Only here the negative consequences of this can still be minimized. Those voids that are formed in the process of mining potash ore, you need to lay waste rock.
Above the potash mines is heterogeneouslayer of rock: above the layer of potassium salt there is a layer of rock salts, and even higher - more than 100 meters of rock saturated with groundwater. The latter are gradually making their way into the voids formed during the development of potash ore. This process can be spurred by an earthquake. This happened, for example, in 1995, when tremors with a force of 4 points resulted in cracks in the rock, brine breakthrough and failure. It is believed that the earthquake was the cause and the November accident at the mine "Solikamsk-2".
By luck, the Solikamsk failurearose not in a populated area, otherwise the victims could not have been avoided. The holiday village Klyuchiki has long been abandoned After the earthquake of 1995, the water supply was disrupted here, and gradually the buildings and summer cottages were abandoned. But residents of Solikamsk fear that their city may suffer the fate of Berezniki, where ground dips began to occur within the city limits. So far, it has been decided to install sensors in the residential buildings located in the immediate vicinity of the company's second mine, transmitting information online.
Projections for the future
According to experts and engineers, Solikamskfailure will grow. In December 2014, it increased in its upper part due to the natural subsidence of the soil. Now the Solikamsk failure, the depth of which has not yet been precisely determined, has increased again. According to the latest data, its dimensions are 50 by 80 meters. During this time, he has become three times more. If the inflow of brine into the mine continued in the same volume, it was highly likely that it would be possible to predict that the failure near Solikamsk would continue to increase if urgent measures were not taken to eliminate the consequences of the November accident. In December, it became clear that the water enters the mine several times less. And if the company at the beginning of events believed that the mine was almost lost, now, with more confidence, experts say that it can still be saved. Since the beginning of December, the mine has begun mining rock to lay it in the voids.
All repeats
Solikamsky failure - not the first in the history of "BRIC". Similar events occurred in 1986 and 1995.
In 2006, the mine of BKRU-1 company was flooded,located near the town of Berezniki, and a year later in its place there was a failure, which increased over time. During the following years, several more failures appeared that began to threaten residential buildings. As a result, Uralkali was forced to take on part of the funding for relocating people from the danger zone and laying bypassing the railway.
The reaction to the failure of Solikamsk on the Internet: fotozhaby
The online community responded to the incident near Solikamsk with a kind of humor.
Failure has become a popular photojob. Some "masterpieces" turned out pretty funny, despite the seriousness of what happened.
