Posted on 02/23/2007 7:18:57 PM PST by FreedomCalls
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AP) -- A giant sinkhole opened before dawn Friday, swallowing several homes and a truck and leaving a father and two teenagers missing in Guatemala City.
Officials said the 100-meter-deep (330-foot-deep) sinkhole in a crowded neighborhood of poor, concrete homes was caused by recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main.
National disaster coordinator Hugo Hernandez identified the missing as Domingo, Irma and David Sosyos, ages 53, 18 and 15, respectively. A body appeared in a river of sewage near the sinkhole, but it was unclear whether the corpse was a victim. ...
The pit was emitting foul odors, loud noises and tremors, and a rush of water could be heard from its depths. Authorities feared it could widen or others could open up.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The tormented in Hell? Sounds of the River Styx?
It's called Karst topography. Typical of limestone surface formations in humid climates. Ground water dissolves the rock and creates underground caverns. When a cave reaches the surface and the surface collapses into it, this is what happens.
300 feet deep!!
My friggin goodness.
Those poor people....they are gone now, and what a horrifying way to go. I can't even imagine it....heavens.
thanks.
Now that is a pothole. Holy moly!
It's pretty stupid statement unless they consider bodies in their sewage system just an everyday event and he wasn't a victim of THIS event.
Sounds like Hillary's senate office.
It's global warming. These days everything is global warming. /s
Well, it is Guatemala.
Bodies in sewers could be commonplace (yeah, I know....ignorant and jingoistic...so sue me).
Bodies turn up in odd places even in a 1st world country -- two kids taking a shortcut last Thursday around here discovered two decomposed bodies in the woods. Nobody knows who they are or even if they are male or female, the MedEx has them and I guess will figure something out.
But if it can happen here, it certainly can happen there.
Nah, just Hillary's Wahr Room swinging into gear.
That hole is going to get bigger as the sides cave in.
Some awfully nasty stuff turns up at the sewage processing plant. My husband is a consulting chemist and deals with some local sewage treatment facilities. They find lots of dead animals and an occasional dead human.
I keep hearing on Coast to Coast AM that the Russians unearthed on of these in Siberia.
But, seriously, thats a big hole.
Somebody should have called Winston Rothschild before it was too late.
In Kentucky, Mammoth Cave formed in a humid climate. And sinkholes are plentiful there.
Several interesting things about the hole:
- It's 330 feet deep but it looks like it's about 80 feet wide. Soil likes to be as cubical as possible when it's a hole.
- The walls are unbelieveably square to the edge as far down as the picture shows.
- It has at least 5 different distinct types of soil in the first 40 feet of depth.
- The hole is incredibly circular, especially considering the depth.
- The surface shows no radial cracks from the edge of the hole.
This is one weird nature-made hole.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.