Sinkholes: When the Earth Opens Up – Impressive collection of sinkhole incidents with photos
The ground beneath our feet, our cars, our buildings, appears to be incredibly solid. But, rarely, that solid ground can simply open up without warning, dropping whatever was above into an unpredictably deep.hole. Sinkholes can be anywhere from a few feet wide and deep, to two thousand feet in diameter and depth. An undiscovered cavern or deep mine can collapse, allowing the ground above to crater, or a broken water main or heavy storm can erode a hole from below, until the surface becomes a thin shell that collapses at once. Communities built atop karst formations are very susceptible, where a layer of bedrock is water-soluble, like limestone, and natural processes can wear away caves and fissures, weakening support of the ground above. Gathered here are images of some of these sinkholes, both man-made and natural, around the world.
A Toledo firefighter rescues Pamela Knox after a massive sinkhole opened up underneath her car in Toledo, Ohio, on July 3, 2013. (Reuters/Lt. Matthew Hertzfeld/Toledo Fire and Rescue)
On the night of November 11, 1957, a huge hole opened up in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood, caused by the failure of an underlying six-foot diameter sewer pipe. The 60-foot-deep hole affected only the streets, sidewalks and some yards, as seen in this photo taken at 16th Ave. NE and Ravenna Blvd on November 15, 1957. No homes were damaged, and nobody was injured, but the hole took two years to fill and repair. More on the story here. Also, see this intersection today on Google Maps Street View. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives)
A hole remains where a structure once stood in Guatemala City, on February 23, 2007. A giant sinkhole swallowed several homes killing at least three people, officials said.
This aerial view shows a large sinkhole that claimed several sports cars, a house, and the deep end of the city swimming pool, in Winter Park, Florida, on May 11, 1981.
A truck lies in a sinkhole which occurred overnight on Shiliuzhuang road, in Beijing, on April 26, 2011. A section of the road collapsed beneath the truck, slightly injuring the driver and a passenger, who both jumped out the vehicle before it sank into the hole.
Three homes damaged from a sinkhole sit on the edge of a hill whose lower area collapsed onto other homes in the LaJolla section of San Diego, on October 4, 2007.
Rescuers work at the scene of a landslide in Saint-Jude, Quebec as shown from the air on Tuesday, May 11, 2010. Four people, including two children, are missing after a sinkhole triggered by a landslide swallowed their house northeast of Montreal.
In June of 1994, a huge hole, 106 ft. wide by 185 ft. deep, opened in the center of an IMC-Agrico waste stack near Mulberry, Florida. The sinkhole, shown in this July 13, 1994 photo, released 20.8 million pounds of liquid phosphoric acid into the ground below, and into the Floridan aquifer, which provides 90 percent of the state’s drinking water. The company voluntarily spent $6.8 million to plug the sinkhole and control the spread of contaminants in the ground water.
Police tape surrounds the house of Jeff Bush, who was consumed by a sinkhole while lying in his bed on the night of April 30, 2013 in Seffner, Florida. First responders were not able to reach Bush after he disappeared and were unable to even recover the body. The house and two neighboring houses were later demolished.
The Lassing mining disaster. On July 17, 1998 a Talc mine below the town of Lassing, Austria, experienced a partial collapse, filling with groundwater and opening up a sinkhole in the town above. Shortly after, a rescue crew of 10 men went into the mine to search for a single missing miner, and a massive collapse followed, opening up an even larger crater above. The first missing miner was found alive after ten days, but all ten of the rescue team members were killed. Here, workers examine the crater, on July 22, 1998.
A giant sinkhole in Guatemala City, on May 31, 2010. More than 94,000 were evacuated as the storm buried homes under mud, swept away a highway bridge near Guatemala City and opened up several sinkholes in the capital.
Workers use machinery to fill in a sinkhole that buildings collapsed into near a subway construction site in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, on January 28, 2013. The hole measured about 1,000 square feet, and was around 30 feet deep, but no one was killed, according to a state media report.
A man walks past a cement truck which fell into a pit after the road caved in, in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, on September 28, 2012.
A stranded car is hoisted from a collapsed road surface in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on September 7, 2008.
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