A large sinkhole has forced an emergency road closure in the City of Wixom.

A sinkhole was discovered on North Wixom Road, which is currently closed between Pontiac Trail to the south, and Maple Road to the north. The closure is just south of the Wixom Elementary School, near the Michigan Air Line Trail.

A void formed under a section of the road, and the Road Commission for Oakland County is working with the City to identify the cause.

Two massive sinkholes appeared on busy roads in Cape Town on Monday, the first in Lavender Hill where a refuse compactor truck fell into the hole and the second in Montague Drive in Milnerton where a four-metre-wide hole appeared, causing major disruptions.

The City of Cape Town's water and sanitation department said on Tuesday it was attending to sewer collapses on Montague Drive and in Lavender Hill.

In Milnerton, one lane had temporarily been closed to traffic due to the sinkhole and motorists were urged to use alternative routes.

Mayco member for water and sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, said a contractor has been sent to the area to determine the extent of the damaged sewer line before the remedial work could be done.

The City of Cape Town says it is retrieving a refuse compactor truck that fell into a sinkhole after a section of road gave way on Monday morning.

The Mayco member for urban waste management, Grant Twigg, said the road in Lavender Hill had no visible signs of damage.

A woman sustained minor injuries and was transported to hospital.

Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse said a rescue vehicle and personnel were deployed after they received a call at around 09:00.

A tow truck also responded to help recover the truck.

A huge sinkhole has opened on a street in the heart of the Gold Coast tourist strip, almost swallowing a car that found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The huge hole opened on Short Street at Southport, adjacent to the Australia Fair shopping centre and just off the Marine Parade esplanade.

The silver Peugeot coupe went nose first into the sinkhole which cracked open suddenly due to broken water pipes.

The car sank into the hole around 4am on Thursday, with major damage to the road and footpath.

A woman was taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries after her car fell into a sinkhole Monday afternoon.

Police said the sinkhole opened up around 3:15 p.m. near the intersection of McClellan Street and Eastern Avenue. It was unclear if the driver was sitting in traffic and the hole opened up, or if it opened before the motorist could not avoid it.

Police said no one else was hurt and there was no threat to the public.

Crews — including at least three tow trucks — were working Monday evening to get the car out of the hole, with the vehicle sitting nose down in the hole with its trunk elevated. The intersection was closed for repairs. Police did not say how long the repairs might take.

Horrific for cell phones, worse for electric vehicles, calamitous under Net Zero.
Global cobalt demand soared with the advent of cell phones and laptop computers. It exploded with the arrival of electric vehicles and now is skyrocketing in tandem with government EV mandates and subsidies. Cobalt improves battery performance, extends driving range and reduces fire risks.

Demand will reach stratospheric heights if governments remain obsessed with climate change and Net Zero. States and nations would have to switch to electric cars, trucks, buses and tractors; end coal and gas electricity generation; convert gas furnaces, water heaters and stoves to electricity; and provide alternative power for windless, sunless periods. Electricity generation would triple or quadruple.

Weather-dependent wind turbines and solar panels would require billions of battery modules, to stabilize power grids and avoid blackouts every time wind and sunshine don't cooperate.

All that Net Zero transformation equipment - plus transmission lines, substations and transformers - will require billions of tons of cobalt, lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, iron, aluminum, rare earths and other raw materials at scales unprecedented in human history. That will necessitate mining, ore processing, manufacturing, land disruption and pollution at equally unprecedented levels.

Just President Biden's first tranche of US offshore wind turbines (30,000 megawatts by 2030) will require some 110,000 tons of copper, for the turbines alone. Transmission lines, transformers and batteries are extra. Based on average global ore concentrations, getting that copper would require extracting 40,000,000 tons of surface rock (overburden) and 25,000,000 tons of copper ore.

But those 2,500 12-megawatt 800-foot-tall turbines would provide barely enough electricity to power New York state on a hot summer day, if the wind is blowing, and before its Net Zero mandates kick in.

A large sinkhole has closed a street in West Philadelphia while crews are investigating.

The city learned of the cave-in, located near 57th and Media Streets, before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, said Brian Rademaekers, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Water Department. The residential 1400 block of N. 57th Street is closed while an investigation is ongoing, Rademaekers said.

The cause of the cave-in is unknown, Rademaekers said, and no water issues have been reported.

A sinkhole has appeared on the East Coast Expressway (LPT) section leading to Karak, prompting road closure.

Bentong MP Young Syefura Othman shared this latest development on her Facebook account, alerting those who are travelling between Kuala Lumpur and Karak.

"I've received information on the sinkhole ... the road has been closed off (for both directions).

"For those planning to travel to Kuala Lumpur or to Karak, they have to go through Bentong," she said in her Facebook post, reminding everyone to be safe on the road and follow LPT management's directives.

Newly released drone footage confirms that the Batagay crater in Siberia continues to grow in size.
A massive crater in Siberia dubbed the "gateway to the underworld" by locals is continuing to grow larger, new drone footage reveals.

The footage, which was released on July 12, offers viewers a bird's-eye view of the Batagay (also spelled Bagatayka and Batagaika) crater, considered to be the largest permafrost depression in the world, according to Ruptly.tv.

Covering approximately 0.3 square miles (0.8 square kilometers) — equivalent to the area of about 145 football fields — the deep scar cutting through the east Siberian woodlands was likely triggered by deforestation during the 1940s. This led to erosion, which then exacerbated seasonal melting of the permafrost and created a "megaslump," or the massive crater in the ground. Because the permafrost in this region is comprised of 80% ice, the large amounts of melting forced sediment on the hillside to collapse, revealing what looks like a giant gash slashing through the landscape in Russia's Sakha Republic.

And it's not just drone imagery that shows that the crater continues to expand. Over the years, satellite imagery has also confirmed that the megaslump has grown in size. As the land has retreated, it has revealed "tens of thousands of years of frozen remains," dating as far back as the Middle Pleistocene, which ended 126,000 years ago.

A large sinkhole forced people from their home in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley on Tuesday.

It opened up on a property in the 200 block of Ridings Circle in Macungie.

Authorities taped off the sinkhole which opened up just feet from the back deck.

It's not yet clear what caused the ground to give way or if the residents will be allowed back in.

Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, a sinkhole under Route 202 in King of Prussia caused a water main break.

Repairs forced the highway to be temporarily shut down.