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Photo: DPA

Geothermal drilling taps violent geyser in Wiesbaden city centre

Published: 6 Nov 09 08:35 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091106-23071.html

Construction workers drilling for a geothermal heat source in the traditional spa town of Wiesbaden created a violent geyser that caused flooding contained only by early Friday morning, Hessian authorities said.

Drilling was underway in the city centre next to the Hessian state Finance Ministry on Thursday and had reached a depth of 130 metres when water began shooting out of the hole.

“There was 6,000 litres of water coming out per minute,” city spokesperson Siggi Schneider told news agency DPA. “The holes are also difficult to close.”

By midnight some 400 square metres surrounding the drill site were under water as 60 fire fighters worked to pump the 15-degree Celsius water into canals and prevent the Finance Ministry and a nearby hotel from flooding. The city had to call geologists and other experts to the scene to help determine what could have caused the fountain, which sprayed as high as 7-metres at one point during the evening.

“While the hole could be filled with cement in the early morning hours, the water flow could not really be stopped,” Finance Ministry manager Karlheinz Weimar told DPA, explaining that the murky water had begun to emerge from the ground in other places.

City officials said they could not yet estimate damages caused by the flooding.

The workers had been testing for the geothermal source to heat a new “passive house,” or ultra-low energy building, for the ministry. The drilling had been considered low-risk.

DDP/DPA/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Your comments about this article:

#1
09:49 November 6, 2009 by Dave WARNE
This is just because the drillers are not using second casing technique. What kind of monkeys to we have here ruining the name of geothermal heating. Oil and Gas drillers know all this, but you might as well reinvest the wheel.
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#2
13:22 November 6, 2009 by Major Domo
Not too smart to fool with Mother Nature. She has a mean streak that can be devastating. The problem is there's no way to "see" what you're drilling into. There's tons of two dimensional, cross-sectional, 3D, graphic enhanced visual rendering of what the Earth looks like under our feet, but there's always that sly anomaly that makes a good concept go bust simply because we can't see it with our eyes to fully understand it. At least the Earth didn't open up and swallow the city...yet.
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#3
11:14 November 9, 2009 by bugger
As Homer Simpson would say, "D'OH".
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