The demolition of a 55-meter high mining tower on Tuesday brought the history of the Staříč III mine in Chlebovice, Frýdek-Místek region, to a definitive end. The former mining symbol will be turned into a pile of scrap metal by workers using heavy equipment to pay for the demolition.
The Staříč III mine was once the largest coking coal mine in the Ostrava-Karviná district. Its construction began in 1962, and two years later, the excavation of the pit started. It was almost a kilometer long. The mining area of the mine covered an area of over 40 square kilometers and covered the territories of thirteen municipalities, including Frýdek-Místek.
In 2017, however, mining ceased, and the gradual demolition of the site began. “The Sviadnov site was liquidated, and now the Chlebovice site is next. It’s nostalgic for most of the employees, who have spent decades of their lives here, “admitted Ivan Šimek, a plant manager at Staříč Mine, who has worked at Staříč and nearby Paskov since 1989.
The emptied mining sites were taken over from the mining company OKD by the state enterprise Diamo. It first had two mining pits filled in at Staříč. Now it is the turn of the demolition of the tower itself. Workers are dismantling the tower in stages. First, they removed the top cube, which the crane brought down to the ground, and then the mining wheels, called the cableway, went down one by one.