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A 40-foot deep sinkhole opened under a Guatemalan woman’s bed on Monday. At 3-feet across, the suddenly-appearing death trap could have been a major safety hazard, but its location saved the family from harm.
“When we heard the loud boom we thought a gas canister from a neighboring home had exploded, or there had been a crash on the street,” Inocenta Hernandez, 65, said in an Agence France-Presse report.
“We rushed out to look and saw nothing. A gentleman told me that the noise came from my house, and we searched until we found it under my bed,” AFP quotes Hernandez as saying.
The area is prone to sinkholes.
In May 2010, a sinkhole about 60 feet across and 100 feet deep opened in the area, swallowing buildings and an intersection.
In 2007, another sinkhole claimed three lives in Barrio San Antonio in Guatemala City.
Hernandez told AFP that she is thankful the surprise under her bed wasn’t any bigger.
“Thank God there are only material damages, because my grandchildren were running around the house, into that room and out to the patio,” AFP quoted her as saying.
An enormous sinkhole swallowed a 3 story building whole in May of this year. This image was posted by the Guatemalan Government after a series of torrential rains and busted sewer pipes caused this hole to form.
Not Photoshop, sadly: these happen from time to time during major storms in part because of unstable geology, and in part, bad urban engineering… A break in the over-stressed sewage pipes after the storm was the cause for this one. There are rumors of other sinkholes now forming nearby.
This has happened before.
Photo – Gobierno de Guatemala | Via BoingBoing
Alcoa High was leading Fulton High in last night’s football game in Knoxville, Tennessee when the game had to called due to the ground opening up and trying to swallow the players.
With Alcoa leading 20-7, a sinkhole opened up near the stands-side sideline at the 41-yard line on the west side of the still-drenched field with 6:33 left to play in the fourth quarter. The field was declared unplayable and play was suspended for the night. The remaining minutes of the game will be played at Alcoa High School’s Goddard Field at 5 p.m. today. Admission is free.
(image credit: Mark A. Large/The Daily Times)
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Sinkholes can develop on the floor of the Great Lakes, just as they do on land. Interestingly the lake-bottom ones can then fill with brine, rather than fresh water, as water percolates out of the bedrock saturated with minerals. This acidic, sulfate-rich, hypoxic environment supports a variety of extremophile organisms.
Now, researchers are discovering that these unusual sinkholes are home to extraordinary communities of microscopic bacteria. The organisms are not new to science, but preliminary genetic analysis is showing that they are relatives of bacteria that live in the subglacial lakes of Antarctica. Others are functionally similar to the extremophile bacteria living on the black smokers of the deep ocean.
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