"Look around and what do you see?"
Posted on 02/26/2007 11:39:52 AM PST by lizol
Third body found in Guatemala sinkhole
February 25, 2007
GUATEMALA CITY -- Emergency crews Saturday found a third body in a 330-foot-deep sinkhole that had swallowed a dozen homes and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood.
The body of Domingo Soyos, 53, was carried out of the enormous fissure and identified by family members, medical crews said.
Soyos was the father of teenagers Irma and David Soyos, whose bodies were found floating in a river of sewage soon after the sinkhole opened Friday.
Residents said there were other people unaccounted for, but emergency crews could not confirm that.
Officials blamed recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main for the tragedy. The pit emitted foul odors, loud noises and tremors, shaking the surrounding ground. A rush of water could be heard from its depths, and authorities feared it could widen or other sinkholes could open.
Police evacuated nearby homes and cordoned off a 500-yard perimeter around the crater. Security officials were on guard for possible looters and curious onlookers.
Bwhahahha! The Mahdi?
OMG. My thoughts exactly. That is right out of a horror movie. Did someone post how deep that thing is?
Give me Hamm on five, hold the Mayo.
Your comment is precisely why I enjoy coming on here daily. Always sure to get one or more true LOL moments.
You forgot to photoshop in the Mickey Mouse doll and other toys strewn about the hole.
Ping
"A spokesman for the municipal water authority, said the sewage main ruptured after becoming clogged. He said the city was aware of the blockage and the army had been considering a controlled explosion to clear the pipe, which carries both rainwater and sewage for much of the capital."
"The hole emitted foul odors, loud noises and tremors, shaking the surrounding ground."
Sounds like that Guatemalan cuisine is powerful stuff.
If it was a brick or clay main -- and a lot still are, even in the US, even today -- it would probably break off flush with the edges of the hole. But you're right that there was probably an undetected cavern beneath, and the ruptured main eroded through a couple dozen feet to the deeper existing hole.
If that happened to my house, and if I survived, I'd be mad. Not because my house was destroyed -- it's insured. But because I didn't know. I could've sunk pilings down to bedrock to support the house, drilled down from the basement, and had my own Batcave! How cool would that be?
I'm so glad we live on granite.
Never take it for granite.
Oh, the hugh manatee!!!
*
Looks like that ugly palestinian woman with the enlarged mouth.
No sinkholes, but the radon's gonna get ya.
My dad's family is in Orlando, and I was down there when the Winter Park sinkhole opened up. It was pretty amazing -- slow enough that there were no fatalities or serious injuries, but fast enough that some houses and cars were lost. The neighborhood swimming pool was cut in half.
I think, though I'm no geologist, that Florida is most vulnerable in times of prolonged drought -- when the aquifer recedes, the water that isn't there leaves a void. The soil is all porous and sandy, so it sinks. The technical term is Karst topography; you also see it in Minnesota, the "land of a thousand lakes," where the freeze-thaw cycle forces open cracks in the rock.
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