Guatemala homes swallowed by hole

Guatemala homes swallowed by hole

Source Link: news.bbc.co.uk

Several houses and at least one lorry have been swallowed by a giant sinkhole in a poor district of Guatemala City.

The hole is said to be more than 100m (330ft) deep. Residents said they had felt the earth shaking and heard loud noises before the houses collapsed.

More than 1,000 homes were evacuated in the area. The national emergency agency said there had not been any casualties.

Officials said the sinkhole had probably been caused by a saturated sewer main.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Some amazing photos on the link below. That one huge sinkhole

www.ordena.com...

Sven Hazel in his anti-war books wrote about whole russian towns swallowed up by the ground but I never truly belived it before this. Not only did the sinkhole swallow a dozen homes and 2 teenagers but millions of tons of the missing rock must also be somewhere. Sewages are not build to handle rock. I think there must be a huge cavern below their city. Will we see the disapearence of the whole town in the following weeks?


small picture of the hole.

I find it odd that the hole is so round. There is round objects in nature but when the ground cracks up it is usually in (chaotic) zig-zag lines.

[edit on 24-2-2007 by Ghaele]

That does not look like a sinkhole to me at all. The sides of those pics are way too smooth and look like someone or something has drilled it out right below the city. Could this be a secret underground base facility project gone wrong?

They should send someone or a camera down there ASAP.

Could be the doorway to HELL itself..........

[edit on 24/2/07 by Melbourne_Militia]

I know the whole Yucatan area is peppered with cenotes (sinkholes) in the limestone structure. I wonder if this is connected somehow as many of them have a round structure rather than irregular shapes.
It could be that there are many others like this below the surface in the area. Maybe if it's safe enough they may send in an exploration team to take a look. At least try lowering in cameras for a closer look. Fascinating but scary to think what's below the surface we live on.

I don't think it is a doorway to Hell itself - just another sign, of Man raping Nature, and Nature defending Herself. I mean if Yucatan has limestone structured land, many sinkholes appear - and here where I live in Slovenia we have an entire area of land covered with limestone and there are many caverns, sinkholes and underwater rivers there.

But in this case I think that the Urban development also helped this sinkhole to emerge from bellow, since usually there are no signs of a sinkhole from above, since the caves ceiling usually collapses very fast.

How do sinkholes form?

Sinkholes are most commonly thought of as physical depressions or holes in the surface of the land. Not all sinkholes, however, are as visible or dramatic as a home or roadway falling into the ground. Many times, sinkhole activity never manifests itself of the surface of the land, making it harder to detect.

A rapid increase in sinkhole activity can be attributed to the development of land, which changes the earth’s surface as well as the weight or load on the soil beneath it. The creation of retention ponds, new buildings and homes, roadways, and changes in ground water levels can all trigger sinkhole activity.

But you never know - perhaps there are some kind of underground passages, halls or bunkers under Guatemala...

That's pretty amazing.

Could you imagine trying to live in that neighborhood after something like this happened ?
You could never feel secure that your house wasn't going to be swallowed by the earth in one big gulp.

The last picture in that secondary link caught my eye. If there are any other construction oriented people out there, take a look at their quality road/base construction. Barely a 2 inch lift of asphalt, over a small limestone sandy type base, and then rely on natural base under that... eww boy...

It's a shame anyone had to die in this event, it seems that they saw it coming.

Authorities had apparently suspected something was wrong with the site before the sinkhole appeared.

"We knew, and (the seismology institute) had placed a seismic meter there," said Alvaro Rodas, the director of social development for Guatemala City. "The city government had contracted a robotic camera system to go down there, but the disaster occurred first."

Cristobal Colon, a spokesman for the municipal water authority, said the sewage main ruptured after becoming clogged. He said the army had been considering a controlled explosion to clear the pipe, which carries both rainwater and sewage for much of the capital.
www.cnn.com...

This is a video about the Guatemala sinkhole so to see the extent of the damage
www.youtube.com...

[edit on 28-2-2007 by Dragonlike]

Just a quick update about this sinkhole. I had a friend who recently visited the area and she told me that nothing has been done to correct this massive hole. She also told me the natives believe its a giant hole in which UFO's have been emerging out of. Not sure about the later, but the massive sinkhole still remains.

reply to post by Simulacra


...UFOs? Amazing, the sides of the hole do seem odd, like there's been the opening before. I bet there's some crazy underground cities in Guatemala! This one w/ the chopper reflection is insane.

Holy hell! That is a big arse hole!

I want to go explore that! See what is at the bottom of it!


VV

I sow on ATS today - it is official , East of Asia is on the top of an underground ocean of water- the size of the Arctic Ocean.. what about a sink-hole on that size?

It's not to crazy that a sinkhole is round, most of the ones I've seen tend to have a circular shape to it. As for it being drilled, I dunno, It looks a lot like it's been sloughed off instead of scooped or drilled.
Personally, I wonder how long that took to form, as well as what's at the bottom.

Originally posted by IronDogg
The last picture in that secondary link caught my eye. If there are any other construction oriented people out there, take a look at their quality road/base construction. Barely a 2 inch lift of asphalt, over a small limestone sandy type base, and then rely on natural base under that... eww boy...

I also noticed that, although I know nothing of road construction I remember watching a program about roman roads that lasted till this day and had a sophisticated base. Some parts of this world are going backwards in technology

i spent 17 years building roads here in the deep south; a state highway would have a minumum of 12" of packed graded aggregate base with 3 lifts of asphalt,usually 4 inches of base,2 inches of binder and 2 inches of topping. not much of a roadway,but it is in guatemala,after all; anyone find any info on the actual depth? from the chopper shot it looks deeper than the 100' stated.

Have anybody any information about what happened with that hole to present day? After a first few days of sensation in medias everybody seemed to forget about it. I checked Google earth and. Hole was visible half year later after collapse. I wonder if it is still there but I couldn’t find any actual photos. Please help. It was really strange and wasn’t properly explained.

Originally posted by odyseusz
Have anybody any information about what happened with that hole to present day?

In February 2007 a large sinkhole opened in a poor neighborhood in northeast Guatemala city, killing three people. The sinkhole was 100.5 m (330 ft) deep, and apparently was created by fluid from a sewer dissolving the rock underneath. As a result,one thousand people have been evacuated from the area. [15] The sink hole has since been mitagated and plans to develop on the site have been proposed.

from wiki

My English language isn’t too good so maybe you didn’t understand me. I know that what you post. I read information in wiki. I’m interested how it looks now, after two years. Guatemala is rather poor country and fill up such enormous hole needs enormous amount of money. I wonder if that hole still exist. In web I could find only old photos made immediately after that accident.