Groningen gas field: A dangerous place to live

More than 3,000 homes have had to be demolished due to earthquake damage and from 2015, gas production has been scaled down.

Transcript

00:00 Addy grew up in this house in Groningen, but because of earthquakes it is no longer safe

00:06 to live.

00:07 "The walls are breaking outside and the inside is breaking."

00:13 The earthquakes are caused by the extraction of gas from the Groningen gas field, the largest

00:18 one in Europe.

00:20 Thousands of residents have struggled to get compensation.

00:23 "It has been said that it has to be reinforced, so they are going to start with that.

00:30 They have been planning to start with that for a long time.

00:33 The procedures are all so long and so complicated and so money wasting, while the money that

00:43 actually has to go to the houses or to the people, that all takes a long time."

00:49 The Groningen gas field's riches laid the foundation for the Dutch welfare state.

00:53 "The discovery of the Groningen gas field was really important to the Dutch economy

00:57 because it enabled us to make annual revenues of about 15 billion euros in the beginning.

01:05 So it was a huge contribution to the Dutch economy and also the Dutch state had a major

01:12 share in these revenues.

01:13 About 80 percent of these revenues went to the Dutch state, to the Dutch society."

01:18 The first earthquake hit in 1986.

01:20 In 2012, a 3.6 scale earthquake caused massive damage and public sentiment started to shift.

01:28 A parliamentary inquiry earlier this year found that the government had placed too much

01:32 importance on gas extraction.

01:35 On the 1st of October, the Groningen gas field will be closed.

01:39 Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited affected residents last Friday.

01:43 "It's important because we know there is a direct link between the earthquake and gas

01:48 extraction and luckily we are able to do without the Groningen gas field.

01:54 So that's why it's crucial to close this, because of the safety of people."

01:59 In case of an exceptionally cold winter, the field could be tapped one last time.

02:04 "Behind me you can see a gas installation that is now partially dismantled.

02:09 Because many of these dotted around the Groningen countryside atop of this largest onshore gas

02:15 field in Europe.

02:16 Now the gas extraction will end, but the earthquakes it has caused will continue for many decades

02:22 to come."

02:23 This is Fernandes Van Tetz reporting for Euronews, Groningen.

02:26 [SWOOSH]