In Lebach-Falscheid, right next to the Nordschacht, the tunnels extend for over 70 kilometres. The entire village has sunk three metres during the last decade, sometimes involving multiple earthquakes a week.

Walking through the village, many houses display the fine fissures in their facades, caused by the quakes.

Several residents agree to speak to me about the situation, some show me around their homes. Some of them are being reinforced or renovated, paid by compensation fees. Even though the mining continues to polarise emotions here, most statements are nuanced and thought-out.

The village’s future is uncertain. It will likely rise again. The underground hollows will, by and by, fill up with groundwater. The mine water retention remains one of the so-called eternal burdens, or eternal tasks. In the Saarland just as in the Ruhr Area.

Coincidentally, Falscheid represents the official centrepoint of the Saarland. This purely topographic fact to me metaphorically intersects with the fact that it also acted as one of the main locations of the Saarland mining industry – right until the end.