Energy land use

My research topic focused on the negative effects on land by energy generation and use. When doing my research on coal mining, I came across this article linked here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2465800820080224

The article talks about a 4.0 earthquake in Germany caused by a mine collapse in the Saarland state. Luckily no one was hurt, but there was lots of damage to buildings and some power outages.

Now, I knew mining is dangerous, what with gas leaks and cave-ins, but it never occurred to me that cave-ins or mine collapses could cause an earthquake on the surface. In my defense, I had never read an article about it until now. It's bad enough when the dangers are restricted to underground miners, but how much worse is it knowing that it could effect the people on the surface as well? Although I didn't enjoy all the writing, I did learn a lot about my topic by doing all the research, so now I know about all sorts of hazards related to energy. And knowing is half the battle.