On January 25th at 9:05 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – It started with fine, barely visible hairline cracks. On facades, walls, in cellars. In 2017/18, no one in the Lower Austrian market town of Sommerein suspected that these cracks were the first signs of ground movements that would turn into a catastrophe for many homeowners. The extremely dry summers in the Leitha Mountains and then again heavy rainfall led to swelling and shrinking of the subsoil, which was interspersed with a high proportion of clay minerals, in a settlement on the eastern slope of a hill in Sommerein – some houses with strip foundations, mostly built in the 1980s and 1990s, could no longer hold up. “Slowly we realized that what was behind it was not something big, but something very big,” says one of the affected homeowners. Some of the cracks in the facades are now so large that moisture, cold and mice can penetrate the houses. The walls are cracking, plaster is falling, wooden beams are bursting, ceilings need to be temporarily stabilized, and one house has already been demolished. When “Am Schauplatzgericht” was in Sommerein with the camera for the first time, the mayor there tried to get financial resources for those affected from the disaster fund – but was rejected. The reason: It is not a “landslide”, but rather vertical ground movements, which would not be considered an extraordinary event within the meaning of the Disaster Fund Act. And the home insurance companies also refused to cover the damage based on this argument, among other things. There are now several lawsuits pending against the insurance companies involved, there are court reports that come to different conclusions, and those affected are worried:
Because repairing the damage – if at all possible – will be expensive and unaffordable for most people.
Sabine Zink has been filming in Sommerein since 2020 and has documented the development of events there in various phases:
The “Sommerein Act” is now being decided in court – for most of the homeowners affected, it is about their financial existence and a shattered dream: that of owning their own house. ORF 2 will show the current “At the Scene of Court” report “The Breaking Houses of Sommerein” on Thursday, January 25, 2024, at 9:05 p.m.