Branany, North Bohemia, June 24 (CTK) – More than 100 activists penetrated into the Bilina mine this afternoon and remained under one of the two excavators, regional police spokesman Daniel Vitek has told CTK, adding that the police detained all of them and will take them to the police station.
Severoceske doly company had to interrupt mining and will quantity the damage in the days ahead.
The activists who penetrated into the mine stayed in a climate camp in Horni Jiretin from Wednesday.
Today, they first went to the nearby CSA brown coal mine, where they created a live chain on its edge delineating the limits. Afterwards, the activists left by bus for the Bilina mine where the government lifted the mining limits in 2015.
According to the police, about 140 people got to the mine. They did not heed the police calls for leaving the mine.
They probably committed a misdemeanour and they face a fine.
Other activists went to the power plant in Ledvice near Teplice, but they did not attempt to penetrate into the complex. They only unfolded a poster.
The activists want to alert to climate change and its consequences, organisers told CTK.
Horni Jiretin and the neighbouring Cernice village would be endangered by brown coal mining if the limits were lifted.
The brown coal mining ecological limits in northern Bohemia were set by a resolution approved by the government of prime minister Petr Pithart in 1991. They guaranteed to towns and villages situated on the coal that they will not be pulled down over mining. The resolution provided for the protection of the remnants of nature and of transport and technical infrastructure in the north Bohemian brown coal basin.
The incumbent government of Bohuslav Sobotka decided in October 2015 to change the mining limits at the Bilina mine, while it preserved them at the CSA mine which neighbours Horni Jiretin.
