Giant sinkhole swallows building

[glenc]

The pictures in this article are amazing.

Giant sinkhole swallows three-storey building in tropical storm

http://www.smh.com.au/world/giant-sinkhole-swallows-threestorey-building-in-tropical-storm-20100601-wtc6.html

[Wavytone]

very scary. I'm even more intrigued by

a) that "soil" is that deep - no bedrock ?!?

b) where did that stuff in the hole go ?

c) and WTF is (or isn't) underneath the rest of the city ? It implies there must be some truly cavernous voids down there.

d) what does it take before these idiots realise maybe it might be advisable to move to a place where this doesn't happen ?

[astroron]

I saw that on another site, quite a big hole:eyepop:
No video for me, only a circular thing going round and round, after being told the video will start in one second it was still going round and round after a minute or more so gave it away:mad2:

[Omaroo]

My gawd... that's incredible. Quite right to ask: where did the debris...uhmm.. go?

Reminiscent of Nero taking out Vulcan...

[renormalised]

I'd be doing a seismic survey of the city, just to find out how big the caverns are underneath it...then I'd be moving the city out of those areas where there were caverns. They probably didn't even know they were there. Now they do!!!!:eyepop::eyepop::eyepop:

[renormalised]

Wavy....the soil is that discoloured layer on the top bit of the sinkhole. The rest of it would be rock, but very porous and heavily eroded rock sitting in situ. Like having a roof over a stadium made out of soft, porous concrete that was just hanging there by the skin of its teeth.

[starlooker]

That hole would be great for exploring.

[wasyoungonce]

The Age...is showing it's Age.

This is a 3 year old story (http://www.worldinterestingfacts.com/nature/top-10-most-amazing-holes-in-the-world.html) maybe even older.

I think the Age is just showing a stock photo but it's bad reporting none the less.

Still it's an awesome sight.

[bloodhound31]

Isn't it interesting how perfectly circular it is? You know what's coming next don't you? :eyepop: :scared2: :abduct:

[wasyoungonce]

I thought it was a North Korean tunnel at 1st. They dug thru the world!:eyepop:

[astroron]

I has a feeling I had seen that somewhere before:question:
It was also posted on a couple of international websites, must be all Murdoch papers:rolleyes:

[renormalised]

Nah, this is what's going to happen....

[starlooker]

If this story is really 3 years old, I bet you Media Watch will give it some air time.

[renormalised]

That is a 100% certainty...if they hear about it.

[wasyoungonce]

Well I have to eat my hat.

They are different sink holes (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/dot-shot-sinkhole-in-guatemala-city/). This news article shows a link to the 2007 one. (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1791473/posts)

They are very similar but different.

Humble pie...tastes...nice?

I can end on this..."Guatemala is a hole"!

[GrahamL]

Maybe these idiots are mostly the very poor who don't have the opportunity to move out of an area they would very much like to ?

[renormalised]

Like your hat with some "Guatamahole":):P

[renormalised]

And if they did move, just how much of the area would they have to evacuate. What if the underground caverns cover a substantial proportion of the city. Might have to evacuate tens of thousands of people, or even a majority of the city. Big job!!.

[wasyoungonce]

Is that sweet or sour?

I did read the hole emitted a foul odour...so I'm guessing that's ..sour.

[renormalised]

Either...take your pick:):P

[MrB]

Haha, Media Watch will also be having fun with tonights episode of 7's Today Tonight.
There was a story about scammers and they mentioned someone had been ripped off $592,000 and then mentioned they were ripped a further half a million for a total of $1.92 million....... some good adding up right there. :rolleyes:

[starlooker]

I just watched the news on SBS, and they have a short piece of video footage of the hole.

[renormalised]

Easy answer to that one...they're journalists. How many of them actually know anything about science or maths. Very few.

[marki]

Saw this happen to a car in Kal back in the early 90's. There was a huge storm and this caused one of the many old mine shafts dug underneath the town to collapse. There was a big hole where the car used to be :P. Never felt too safe driving around the place after that:eyepop:.

Mark

[MrB]

I lived in Kal as a kid.... no surprise my parents lived in fear that my brother and I would disappear down a hole one day.
The bush(where my bro and I used to go play) around Kal is like swiss cheese.

[AstralTraveller]

Hmmm, do I see a pattern developing? To quote Monty Python, "Run away, run away."

[Nesti]

Gauss would love this picture. :D

[multiweb]

This is a geological condition also known as swisscheesiatis. :evil:

[mental4astro]

Not far wrong!

Alot to the Central American ismuth is made of limestone. These storms have carved out enormous amounts of the substrait. These sinkholes are very common. If you look at a map of these countries, they have very few rivers. Most of the water flows into these sinkholes and out to sea. There have been a few adventurers that have followed these underwater rivers all the way out to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific too. The flow of this freshwater being strong enough to remain drinkable to a couple of km from shore, even producing a two level water system with the fresh water running below the saltwater, even though the salt water is denser.

This explains why you don't see the bottom of the hole- it isn't there in the first place!

The ancient Aztec civilization which had suddenly disappeared hundreds of years before the Maya, and Columbus, fell victim to this geology, where their entire aquaculture revolved around this underground water system. That was until erosion undercut their water source and instantly killed their civilization.

The more recent Maya civilization, and Mexico City now too, relies on much of this underground water source. Problem for them is that they are using it faster than it is being replenished, AND it is seasonal- It's the tropics there.

[Ric]

Blimey that's downright scarey, I wonder how deep it goes.

[multiweb]

China? I thought I could see some iPeds floating at the bottom...

[Nesti]

Marc-Marc-Marc!!!

Everybody knows the opposite side of the world to Guatemala is the Indian Ocean at 89.769241°E, -15.783471°S. They're not iPeds, they're Injinz!

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop: scary thought isnt it. This is the second time this has happened in this town isnt it :screwy:

[Bassnut]

What does that mean, I dont get that?.

[MrB]

I can clearly see the bottom of the hole in one of the photo's. :shrug:

[mental4astro]

The bottom of the sinkhole is the channel that carries the subterranian water. So as such the sinkhole doesn't have a bottom as it was washed away.

These sinkholes occur initally through a fissure in the rock, creating a gutter which leads to the subterranian 'river'. Over time the fissure spreads the water through the rock through capillary action. This widens the weakening effect of the errosion, until the weight of the material above the 'gutter' causes the weakened erroded rock to cave in.

There is such a sinkhole here in New South Wales at the Abercrombie Caves, not far from Cowra. I was there 18 months ago too. To access the main cave there you actually walk down into the sinkhole. A massive structure. The main cave is the subterranian river that still contains its original river run, but obviously without the amount of water that originally created it.

Actually, our Abercrombie caves show that the local geology has undergone many climatic changes. First a marine enviroment to create the coral reef, metamorphosing into limestone. Geological movement lifted the reef and a tropical enviroment erroded the limestone and created the sinkhole and cave system. Now the area is much drier, with a very different climate and flora, limestone errosion occuring much more slowly.

The river running through the cave system does on occasion experience flooding, evidenced by the debri of trees and rubble that the force of water washes down the near dry riverbed.

[AstralTraveller]

Looking at the sinkhole I'm struck by just how circular it is. I think other sinkholes I've seen have also been round (there's a nice one south of Braidwood).

Now the underground cavern is long and sinous and the fissures through the rock are almost certainly not straight and vertical. So why does the rock failure have such a regular shape? Why isn't it elongated and irregular? The answer is obviously more in physics and engineering rather than earth science.

[Nesti]

And another one widens up

http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday#p/u/3/JhLePGgczcs

Time to sink or swim.

[Jen]

:eyepop::eyepop:

[Ric]

Blimey, make sure your home and contents insurance is up to date.

[glenc]

http://www.smh.com.au/world/massive-crater-opens-up-in-german-town-20101102-17aot.html
"A crater some 20 metres deep has opened up in a residential area of an eastern German town - swallowing a car and a garage door, but causing no injuries. Emergency services were called to the crater in Schmalkalden about 3am on Monday by a resident who reported hearing unusual noises. Six houses and 25 people were evacuated."

The cars in the garages might be there for a while!