Sinkholes
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Large sinkhole swallows road in Mason City, Iowa

Brian Tabick
KIMT
Sat, 11 Jun 2016 20:42 UTC
Iowa sinkhole
© KIMT
Authorities say they responded to a call of a sink hole around midnight on B20 near Poplar and Raven Road just North of Mason City.

Those who live near the sinkhole say they have been working on fixing the damage left behind for most of the morning.

"It washed out our waterline for horses, and I have been working on that all day," says Steve Smith. "But the road is the least of our worries. It washed out our crops, we had some hail north of here, the roads the minor compared to what we've dealt with."

Deputy Brian Koob with the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Office says many road ways are blocked with water and folks need to try and avoid areas that completely covered.

"It is something that just pops up," says Deputy Koob. "We ask the driver to be vigilant, when we have heavy downpours and flash flooding this could happen to any roadway. It's hard to detect when the colvert is going to giveway unless you see the bowing in the road or anything of that affect."

As for Smith, he says this isn't the first time he has seen a sinkhole and it certainly wont be the last.

"I've seen it numerous times, when you get 4 inches in 15- 20 minutes it's going to happen," he says.

Comment: Sinkholes: The groundbreaking truth

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Garbage truck falls into sinkhole in Austin, Texas

Jane Webster
Austin American-Stateman
Fri, 10 Jun 2016 11:38 UTC
Austin sinkhole
© Rodolfo Gonzalez/Austin American-Statesman
A sinkhole swallowed the front end of a garbage truck in North Austin on Friday.

The truck's driver was fine — he found another truck and finished his route, a city official said — but Austin Water had to turn off the water in the immediate area for several hours while crews extracted the truck.

The cause was a 12-inch water main break, said Jill Mayfield, a spokeswoman for Austin Water.

"When water mains break, they run underneath the ground for a while, and then they're going to find the path of least resistance," she said.

The water from this break had flowed under the road and undercut its foundation, Mayfield said, weakening it enough for the heavy truck to break through.

A full block of West 49th Street was shut down between Woodview Avenue and Shoal Creek Boulevard on Friday morning while more than a dozen people worked to pull the truck out of the hole.

Workers hooked the truck to a tow vehicle, but then they had to get steel plates to make the ground safe enough for towing.
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Info

New info on 'crater-hole' in Siberia: 'Explosion' and 'glow in sky' witnessed 100 km away


The Siberian Times
Tue, 07 Jun 2016 05:35 UTC
Siberian crater hole
© Vladimir EpifanovSince the crater was formed in a 2013 blowout, the crater's size rapidly increased at least 15 times during the next year and a half.

Startling new details emerge of the most mysterious of Siberia's newly created giant permafrost holes.

First accounts of the gaping fissure in the earth - found by reindeer herders, who were almost swallowed up by the crater - reported that it was around 4 metres in width and 'about 100 metres' deep.

Scattered over a radius of one kilometre were lumps of displaced soil, sand and ice which had erupted from the earth.

Now we can reveal significant new details about this remote crater on the Taimyr peninsula in Krasnoyarsk region, some 440 kilometres from dozens of other newly-formed giant holes.

Firstly, respected scientist Dr Vladimir Epifanov, the sole leading expert to so far visit the site, said: 'There is verbal information that residents of nearby villages - at a distance of 70-100 km - heard a sound like an explosion, and one of them watched a clear glow in the sky. It was about one month after the Chelyabinsk meteorite.'

Locals wrongly suspected it was another exploding space object falling from the sky, it is believed. This is the first known account of the explosive sound, and a bright light in the sky for which - as yet - there seems no explanation.

Comment: The changes to the climate and earth are right on schedule and have little to do with human causation. This phase is the relatively short precursor to an ice age. We live in the last gasps of temperate climate, indicated by the uptick in weather disasters occurring all over the world, the ramifications of the electric universe affecting our entire solar system.

The process of degassing is a normal phenomenon in permafrost regions containing quantities of methane. A lightning strike connecting with a spouting methane vent might prove to be interesting!

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Attention

Massive sinkhole shuts down street in downtown Ottawa


CBC News
Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:44 UTC
Ottawa Sinkhole
© Jean Delisle/CBCA massive sinkhole has spread across Rideau Street in downtown Ottawa.
Mall evacuated, power out in area, police ask residents to avoid scene of the collapse

A massive sinkhole has formed next to a shopping mall in downtown Ottawa, causing a gas leak and forcing the evacuation of all nearby businesses.

The sinkhole formed near the corner of Rideau Street and Sussex Drive, not far east of the Chateau Laurier hotel. Soon after forming, it spread across the entirety of Rideau Street, from sidewalk to sidewalk.

A large volume of water could be seen gushing inside, but the water has since been shut off.



Comment: A list of of recent sinkhole activity can be found here.

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Five-metre-wide sinkhole appears outside primary school in Nanning, China


South China Morning Post
Mon, 06 Jun 2016 17:38 UTC
Nanning sinkhole
© South China Morning Post
A five-metre-wide sinkhole has appeared outside the gate of a primary school in southwestern China, mainland media report.

Luckily no one was injured because the ground collapsed at 8am on Sunday when Xiuling Primary

School in the city of Nanning, in Guangxi province, was closed, the China News Service reported.

Police quickly arrived at the scene of the sinkhole to block off the pavement and road near the school's entrance.
Nanning sinkhole
© South China Morning Post
An initial investigation found the sinkhole was caused by heavy rainfall over a number of days, which had led to the flooding of an underground basement, the report said.

Road collapses often occur in mainland cities during rainy days because of the poor quality of the infrastructure projects, experts said.

Comment: See also:

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Hardhat

Large sinkhole develops overnight in Austin, Texas neighborhood

James Barragan
Austin American-Statesman
Sat, 04 Jun 2016 10:40 UTC
Austin sinkhole
© Rodolfo Gonzalez / American-Statesman
Residents of Sierra Blanca Street in Northwest Austin woke up to sinkhole on their road that developed overnight as rain pounded the city.

Around 9 p.m., Austin police reported that a sinkhole had formed on the 10800 block of Sierra Blanca and said the road would be shut down for days until it could be repaired. Authorities aren't sure whether the hole was caused by the rain, but noted that the street where it formed was hit with heavy rainfall.

"The street is closed to motor vehicle traffic right now," Carolyn Perez, the public affairs manager for the city's public works department, said Saturday morning. "We're asking people not to move the barricade. ... We're asking for the public's consideration."

Perez said she estimated the whole was 6 feet deep and 6 feet wide.

"It's a sizable hole," she said. "We would not want someone to drive there and not realize it's there. It's at the bottom of a slight hill and you won't see it until you're right up on it, especially at night."

Perez said the Public Works Department was working with police to keep people off the street. She said a fence would be put up around the hole. An engineer from the department will inspect the hole later Saturday to determine what caused it and how long repairs will take.
Austin sinkhole
© Rodolfo Gonzalez / American-Statesman
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Massive growing sinkhole raises concern in Shreveport, Louisiana

Troy Washington
12 KSLA News
Fri, 03 Jun 2016 23:42 UTC
Shreveport sinkhole
© KSLA
Shreveport city officials and especially concerned customers who shop right next door.

KSLA news 12 has received several phone calls about the large hole on Grimmett Drive in north Shreveport.

It's a growing hole that until recently few even noticed. Now the leaning columns and cracking cement have made the problem a dead giveaway.

"Right now, I came here and I asked the owner is it going to be safe to continue to come here, and drive across this parking lot, and get gas and shop here," Clyde Simpson said. He believes the sinkhole started small but has grown so quickly he's afraid of what could happen next.

"I come here often, and now I'm thinking the store is going to start to collapse, it's going to make a run for it."

KSLA News 12 was there as city drainage and sewage workers came out to take a firsthand look at the hole at a vacant building next to a convenience store on Grimmett Drive. Workers quickly put up caution tape warning others.
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Two cars fall into sinkhole in Omaha, Nebraska

Michael Markewinski
fox42kptm.com
Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:47 UTC
Sinkhole swallows two cars
Sinkhole swallows two cars
A man is now thanking his lucky stars he was not hurt after his car got swallowed up into a giant sinkhole. It happened around 10:15 p.m. Thursday night near Aksarben Village.

Investigators said the concrete ceiling above an underground parking garage gave way at 60th and Woolworth Avenue outside the "Tracks Bar".

As a result, two cars fell into the sinkhole.

The man was able to get out on his own.

Investigators are now trying to figure out what caused the sinkhole.
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Growing sinkhole closes 3 lanes on Interstate 5 near Tracy, California


CBS News - Sacramento
Tue, 31 May 2016 21:06 UTC
Tracy sinkhole
© Glenn Moore/Tracy Press
A sinkhole along Interstate 5 in San Joaquin County is diverting traffic.

The sinkhole is just south of Highway 33, Caltrans says.
Tracy, California
© Mapquest
Northbound I-5 at Highway 132 will be closed for at least two to three days due to the sinkhole. A detour has been set up at Highway 33.

A Caltrans maintenance crew found the small hole on Tuesday morning, but that hole wouldn't stay small for long. Caltrans says the hole was 15 feet and growing and crews will have to tear apart the roadway to find the source of the sinkhole.

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Terrifying landslide fimed by mobile in China


You Tube
Sun, 29 May 2016 21:04 UTC
Landslide China
Heavy rain swept south China in the past few days, triggering several geological disasters.

On Sunday, a passersby recorded a terrifying landslide moment by his mobile phone in the city of Hechi, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

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