Sinkholes
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6 family members killed in Crimea as a massive sinkhole swallows up car

Mark Piggott
International Business Times
Mon, 29 Sep 2014 20:02 UTC
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Six members of one family - including three-year-old twins - died instantly when a vast sinkhole opened up in the motorway and swallowed their car in Crimea. Two other children aged 12 and 12 months survived.

It is believed the car was driving between the Crimean capital Simferopol and a village called Nikolaevka in the disputed region, which recently voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia.
Car falls into monster 8-meter-wide sinkhole in Crimea (PHOTOS, VIDEO) http://t.co/QbrCYG11C8 pic.twitter.com/EKpC5jzGoH
- RT (@RT_com) September 28, 2014
Suddenly a massive hole opened up in the ground, ripping away power-lines and reportedly casting the road into darkness. The car's driver, Ibrail Eskandarov, 34, frantically applied his brakes but had no time to avoid the 26-feet wide hole, rescuers said. The car fell 20 metres and smashed into the bottom.

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Cement truck gets swallowed up by huge sinkhole, Russia


Metro (UK)
Fri, 24 Oct 2014 19:47 UTC
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© YouTube/WiktorNot what you expect on your normal commute
There are times to regret the amount of dash cams on the road recording our every mistake but this truck driver must be chuffed the car behind had their camera working.

Explaining to the boss that your cement truck fell into a large sink-hole works a lot better knowing there is video evidence.

Sinkholes are depressions or craters caused after the collapse of the surface layer and can vary in diameter from one to 600m.

The cause of such rare incidents can vary from the collapse of a disused mine shaft to to ruptured sewage pipes.

Needless to say, this truck driver will never look at a road the same ever again.


Comment: Sinkhole heat map for the past year -



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Question

Earth opening up? China's largest freshwater lake shrinks by one third in just 3 days

Kong Defang
english.peopledaily.com.cn
Wed, 22 Oct 2014 19:52 UTC
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Lake Poyang
China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang, has shrunk by one third in the past three days due to reduced water supply from the Yangtze River and little rainfall.

At 8 a.m. Wednesday, the lake's surface area was 1,490 sq km, a reduction of 679 sq km compared with 2,169 sq km on Monday, said the Jiangxi Provincial Hydrological Bureau.

The water level at Xingzi hydrological station was 11.99 meters at 4 p.m. Wednesday, 2.13 meters lower than the levels in normal years. The water level is falling by 30 cm per day.
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Huge sinkhole opened up in Asheville, North Carolina

John Boyle and Julie Ball
Citizen Times
Thu, 16 Oct 2014 14:28 UTC
Sinkhole
© Katie BaileyA large sinkhole opened up Wednesday in the parking lot at the Buncombe County Planning and Development building on S. Charlotte Street.
A sinkhole the size of a pickup truck opened up overnight Wednesday on a county-owned parking lot behind the former TK Tripps restaurant at College and South Charlotte streets.

Heavy rains Tuesday apparently opened up the crater, according to local developer Rusty Pulliam, who with a partner is building a retail/office complex on the site.

Workers about two months ago discovered a drainage pipe installed in 1922 on their property and the county lot, and they are working with the city to relocate it so it will drain to South Charlotte Street, Pulliam said.

"Some sections of it are 40 feet deep, and some of it had collapsed," he said.

The city had agreed to pay for half the cost of relocating the pipe, which appears to carry a stream, but the county has not taken any action, Pulliam said.
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Bizarro Earth

Dump truck in sinkhole forces evacuations at New Jersey strip mall

Danielle Elias
NBC New York
Sat, 04 Oct 2014 03:26 UTC
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© Danielle EliasSeveral businesses were evacuated after a dump truck got stuck in a sinkhole in a New Jersey strip mall parking lot where construction is being done, authorities said.
Several businesses were evacuated after a dump truck got stuck in a sinkhole in a New Jersey strip mall parking lot where construction is being done, authorities said.

Police said the dump truck was backing up to the construction site around 12:30 p.m. Friday when the weight of the vehicle created a hole in the pavement.

Businesses in a strip mall at 321 Broadway in Hillsdale were evacuated.

"There was big, loud bang," said Adam Duraku, an employee at Ray's Traditional Pizza, part of the strip mall. "I walked out and the truck was literally hanging down, right through the garage. It was crazy."
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Bizarro Earth

Big rig partially swallowed by sinkhole in Corpus Christi, Texas

Rebecca Salinas
My San Antonio
Fri, 03 Oct 2014 17:00 UTC
Sinkhole
© Corpus Christi Water DistributionA water main break near downtown Corpus Christi caused a sinkhole to form, partially swallowing a big rig.
A sinkhole near downtown Corpus Christi partially swallowed a big rig Thursday.

Deanna McQueen, public information officer for Corpus Christi, said a broken water line drenched the soil and caused the sinkhole to develop in the the road above. The pavement collapsed as the truck drove over it.

She said the "very large sinkhole," on Omaha Drive between Leopard Street and Baldwin Boulevard, would be fixed by Friday evening.

Michael Olivarez, water distribution superintendent, said crews are in the process of checking for additional cracks by sending a camera throughout the pipe. He said once the damaged pipe is replaced, the hole would be filled with cement.
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Roses

Child killed after Sicily mud geyser eruption


thelocal.it
Sat, 27 Sep 2014 22:59 UTC
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© MJoblingThe eruption of a mud geyser at the Maccalube nature reserve in Sicily killed a seven-year-old girl on Saturday.
The sudden eruption of a mud geyser at a nature reserve in southern Sicily killed a seven-year-old girl on Saturday, Italian media reported, adding that her nine-year-old brother was missing.

The two children were walking with their father in the Maccalube nature reserve north of Agrigento when a geyser spewed mud over them.

The father, a police officer, was uninjured, but the girl's body was found shortly afterward while the boy could not be found, the reports said.

He was celebrating his ninth birthday on Saturday, they said.

The Maccalube reserve offers an unusual landscape of small mud geysers that erupt sporadically.

It was closed for part of August because of intense underground activity, press reports said.
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15 sinkholes devour the same recently built road in the last 6 months


Strange Sounds
Fri, 26 Sep 2014 00:00 UTC
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The last sinkhole has opened up this week along the newly built West Third Ring Road in Zhengzhou. This is the 15th collapse within 6 months. Pretty terrifying, no?

The reason behind the crater formations is unknown and still under investigation. According to officials, maintenance of the 13th sinkhole has failed on September 20, and a rescue vehicle found itself trapped inside and began sinking into the earth. It might also be related to poor construction material... The cement pipe inside the last sinkhole was full of holes.

Comment: Wanna know how the global rising phenomena of sinkholes electrically connects to cosmic movers like comets/ meteors, our Sun and it's possible twin? Get your hands on:
Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection (The Secret History of the World Book 3)

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Bizarro Earth

A big chunk of the Sierra Nevada caught fracturing on video

Scott K Johnson
Ars Technica
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:15 UTC
Rock Fracturing
© Screen Capture Youtube
If you like geology, you're used to relying on an active imagination. Most geologic processes occur too slowly to see them play out for yourself. Many of the exceptions are dangerous enough that you might not want a front row seat or are rare enough that the odds of being there to witness them are disheartening. Sometimes, though, the Earth throws us a bone - or in this case, a gigantic slab of granite.

One interesting way that rocks weather and crumble apart is called "exfoliation." Like the skin-scrubbing technique, this involves the outermost layers of exposed igneous or metamorphic bedrock sloughing off in a sheet. Over time, this tends to smooth and round the outcrop - Yosemite's Half Dome providing a spectacular example.
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25-foot-deep sinkhole opens up behind Walmart in Clarksville, Tennessee

Chris Smith and Tavia D. Green
The Leaf-Chronicle
Fri, 05 Sep 2014 07:32 UTC
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A landscaper came within a few inches of a 25-foot-deep cavern while mowing grass on Arrowood Drive Thursday morning.

At about 9 a.m., the mower felt a tire slip by the side of the road and discovered the tire had broken through the earth. About 5 inches below the ground he was mowing across was a 25- to 27-foot-deep sinkhole, about 10 feet by 15 feet wide, said Jack Frazier, Clarksville Street Department engineering manager.

Arrowood Drive, which is off of Fort Campbell Boulevard near Purple Heart Parkway, was closed from the back entrance of Walmart to the veterans home currently under construction. Construction workers will be able to access that site via Jordan Road, according to a city news release.

Sinkholes are fairly common in Clarksville, which has what's known as karst terrain. "I've seen better ones and I've seen worse," Frazier said.
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