Lou and Denise Lambros and their four children were immediately evacuated from their Florida home after the huge hole, that measures 100 feet across and nearly 50 feet deep, suddenly appeared overnight.
A few days after the 'unreal' incident, Lou Lambros says it has sunk in that his family narrowly escaped potential tragedy and spoke of his relief that none of the neighbourhood children, who often came to play in the garden, were hurt.
© WFTVThat sinking feeling: A massive sinkhole 100-ft across appeared in the backyard of the Lambros family's house overnight.
© WFTVWake-up call: Denise Lambros noticed the huge sinkhole around 7am when she let the dog out.
© SplashUnbelievable: It took Denise Lambros a few moments to comprehend what she was witnessing when she first saw the sinkhole.
The cause of the sinkhole is unknown, but officials believe the dry weather conditions experienced in parts of the south could have contributed to the hole.
Lambros admitted that it finds it hard to look at the hole, which is getting bigger, adding, 'We feel that God saved us from a tragedy.'
© MSNBCClose call: Although they are temporarily homeless the Lambros family spoke of their relief that no one was hurt in the freak accident.
Denise Lambros discovered the pit in their backyard around 7am on Saturday morning when she let the dog out.
'The earth open huge and huge chunks of dirt fall in. I witnessed a tree slide down into it,' she told Msnbc.
© WFTVDeep and wide: The hole measures around 50-ft deep.
When the Orange County Fire Department arrived, they told the young family to gather as many personal belongings as they could and evacuate, along with their pet cat and dog.
The house was deemed unsafe to live in.
According to clickorlando.com, the family is relying on help from friends and relatives and are living in temporary housing.
They are moving all their possessions out of their home into the garage, which is further from the hole.
'The ground was just falling into the hole, and the trees were gone,' Lou said on Saturday. 'It was happening very rapidly, too.'
According to WESH, geological experts are currently evaluating the hole.
© WKMGInvestigating: Geologists are trying to determine what exactly caused the cave-in.
© SplashFreak accident: The cause of the sinkhole, which appeared overnight, is unknown but may have been caused by the dry weather.
That's the weirdest characterization of a sinkhole event that I've heard in a long time.
We've already had someone who seemed to know what he was talking about say that a lot of that land is actually limestone - very porous and prone to this sort of cave-in. If so, stating that could make whole neighborhoods want to re-evaluate the stability of the land they are built on.
I know some sinkholes are caused by sudden pipe breaks. But this thing was perfectly round - very characteristic of natural sinkholes.
I wonder how many houses in America are built on land that really shouldn't have been built on.