orecastDrive through the Ruhr today and you see residential streets, spoil-tip viewpoints and winding towers turned into museums. What you do not see: beneath all of it lies a second world. A network of shafts, galleries and mined-out chambers, dug by generations of miners, stacked in several levels, in places more than a thousand metres deep. Our new episode climbs down and shows where this world is documented to this day.
A century of coal
Coal turned villages into one of the largest industrial regions in the world within a few decades. Hundreds of collieries produced what blast furnaces, railways and power stations across Europe burned, and hundreds of thousands of miners went underground every day. At the end of 2018, Prosper-Haniel in Bottrop closed as Germany's last hard coal mine. Production is history; the hole in the ground is not. What was dug stays dug.
1,202 points on the map
That is what the map in this episode is about: 1,202 documented shafts, galleries and other mining features in the Ruhr area alone, drawn in ORECAST's caves and mining layer. The points come from open, documented sources, and our honesty line applies as always: the map shows what is recorded, not everything that lies below. In the Ruhr, old workings are so dense that voids keep turning up that were on no map at all, sometimes as a sudden sinkhole in someone's front garden.
A task with no end date
And this second world keeps working. Without the pumps that hold the mine water down forever, it would eventually rise back into the cellars; in the region they call these the eternity tasks. Mining is over, but it is not gone. If you want to understand why streets in the Ruhr subside and surveyors check the old-mining register before a house purchase, the answer lies a few hundred metres below the doormat.
Important: Old galleries and shafts are life-threatening. They can collapse, be flooded or hold deadly gases. Never enter them. The map is for looking and understanding, not for climbing in.
Frequently asked questions
How many shafts and galleries under the Ruhr are on record?
The ORECAST caves and mining layer holds 1,202 documented shafts, galleries and other mining features for the Ruhr area alone, all taken from open sources. That is what has been recorded, not everything that is down there. Old workings sit so close together in this region that voids keep appearing which were on no map at all, sometimes as a sudden sinkhole in someone's front garden.
When did Germany's last hard coal mine close?
Prosper-Haniel in Bottrop shut down at the end of 2018 as the country's last hard coal mine. Before that, hundreds of collieries here supplied the blast furnaces, railways and power stations of Europe, and hundreds of thousands of miners went underground every day. Production ended, the workings did not go away. What was dug stays dug.
What are the eternity tasks in the Ruhr?
Ewigkeitsaufgaben, literally eternity tasks, is the local term for the work that never stops once the mining has stopped. Pumping is the central one: without the pumps that hold the mine water down for good, it would eventually rise back into people's cellars. The industry is gone, its consequences are not, and this job comes with no end date.
Can you enter old shafts and galleries in the Ruhr?
No. Old workings are life-threatening: they can collapse, stand full of water or hold deadly gases. The nineteenth century ones are the hardest to judge, because coal lay close to the surface then and was often dug without a Riss, the surveyor's plan, so no record of them exists at all. The map is there for looking and understanding, not for climbing in.