Sinkholes
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Golfer swallowed up by 12-foot sinkhole in Waterloo, Illinois

Derek Burnett and Emma Thomas
Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 17 Jan 2014 12:27 UTC
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Mike Peters, Hank Martinez, and Ed Magaletta call to Mark Mihal in the sinkhole
  • 43-year-old mortgage banker Mark Mihal was playing golf with three friends
  • He was at the 14th hole of the Annbriar golf course in Waterloo, Illinois
  • Noticing a depression in the ground, he walked over and ground gave way
  • He became trapped in the 12-foot sinkhole and had to be rescued
  • Mr Mihal suffered a broken shoulder and torn tendons after the fall
A claustrophobic mortgage banker has told the story of how a round of golf ended up with him plunging into a sinkhole that opened as he walked across the 14th hole.

Mark Mihal, 43, and his partner Mike Peters, were easily beating regular opponents Ed Magaletta and Hank Martinez during a game in early March last year.

Mr Mihal and Mr Peters had both outdriven the other pair on the 14th hole of the Annbriar golf course in Waterloo, Illinois.

Each landed the ball nicely on the fairway, leaving Mr Magaletta and Mr Martinez at the edge of the woods trying to clear a bunker.

But while Mr Mihal was waiting for Mr Peters to hit his second shot, he noticed a shallow, bathtub-size depression in the grass of the fairway.

It was out of place on the well-kept course, and looked as if it would be tricky to play out of.

He walked over and stepped into the depression - and promptly vanished.
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Large sinkhole opens in Manhattan

Cody Scholberg and Genevieve Belmaker
theepochtimes.com
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 09:53 UTC
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Tuesday night about midnight, one of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)'s water lines broke along 5th Avenue and 13th Street in Manhattan.

The water line that broke was part of NYC's original Croton water system installed in 1877. NYC currently has three water systems that supply drinking to residents: the Croton, Catskill, and Delaware systems; Croton is the oldest of the three. Currently, it provides about 10% of the City's daily demand. According to the DEP, "Croton water is primarily used in low-lying areas of the Bronx and Manhattan, where the water can be conveyed by gravity."

The 36-inch diameter pipe broke, and the water from it washed away the dirt under the asphalt, causing a sinkhole. "The dirt is what supports the pavement," said a spokesperson from the DEP.

The water to that line is now turned off, and the DEP is making repairs. The DEP said that they cannot speculate how long the repairs will take at this point.

5th Avenue is closed between 13th and 14th Street. The B, C, D, E, F, M, and Q subway lines are affected. Service changes can be viewed on MTA's website.
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Mandatory sinkhole insurance coverage proposed in Missouri State Senate bill

Laura Kennedy
ozarksfirst.com
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:00 UTC

A Missouri lawmaker lays the groundwork for homeowners to get sinkhole insurance.

Our entire region is at risk for sinkholes because of the porous limestone and Karst formations under the Ozarks.

But most insurance companies exclude sinkholes from coverage.

That's a gap Senate Bill 691 seeks to fill.

Springfield homeowner Mark Hill is still paying for a near disaster that happened one year ago.

"We had a collapse between the two houses which was not a sinkhole, but was an old mine shaft," he said.

When the mine shaft opened up it went well under the corner of his neighbor's house and extended eight feet underneath his house.

"My air conditioning unit fell into the hole," he said.
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Walthall County family discovers mysterious hole in yard

Perrise Thomas
WJTV
Tue, 14 Jan 2014 15:02 UTC
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Walthall County hole is like a vacuum, and if the family pours water into it, it guzzles it right down.
A Walthall County family sent us a video Sunday morning of what they call a mysterious hole forming in their yard. The home is on Jayess road in Tylertown, Walthall County.

"We don't know what this is. There's a sink hole in our yard, and it's sucking air." says Max McKenzie.

They say it's like a vacuum, and if they pour water into it, it guzzles it right down.

"I don't know what it is, but we're going to have to do something to find out," says Max. His 14-year-old son, Brad, discovered it.

"I heard noise coming from the ground, I got my ear down there and listened to it," says Brad.

They took a shovel and dug around the hole, hoping to figure out what it is. They even stuck a pipe down there to see how deep it is. And no matter how much water they pour into the hole, it guzzles the water, and it just disappears.
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Smoking

Despite worldwide anti-smoking propaganda campaign, the percentage of people who smoke appears to be increasing


Associated Press
Thu, 09 Jan 2014 16:37 UTC
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Stop me
Despite a steep drop in the number of smokers in the United States over the last three decades, researchers say that cigarettes remain a growth industry for the rest of the world because of expanding population.

In a package of studies published online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that the total number of world smokers with a pack-a-day habit had "increased significantly."

Even though the global smoking rate has declined since 1980 by roughly 25 percent for men and 42 percent for women, the total number of smokers has grown from 721 million to 967 million. The total number of cigarettes consumed annually has risen from 4.96 trillion to 6.25 trillion.

"The number of smokers has increased steadily worldwide, and there are preliminary indications that global prevalence among men increased in recent years," wrote lead study author Marie Ng, a world health statistician at the University of Washington, and her colleagues.

The studies in JAMA were published to mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. surgeon general's first report on smoking, a landmark document that first laid out the health dangers of the habit.

Comment: The real tug of war is between people who submit to government propaganda and those who resist tyranny.

The main goal of tobacco smoking bans is "to change societal behavior" by stigmatizing smoking, making it less convenient and less socially acceptable. By raising the stakes, it helped transform a complaint into a right, so that people annoyed by tobacco smoke now felt justified in demanding that it be eliminated everywhere they might want to go, including other people's property.

In short, they have conditioned the majority of the people on the planet to behave like Nazis and think it is normal.

See also:

The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain

Let's All Light Up!

5 Health Benefits of Smoking

Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers

Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients

Brain Researchers: Smoking increases intelligence

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Attention

Best of the Web: Review of extreme weather and cosmic events on Earth in 2013 (VIDEO)

HawkkeyDavis Channel
YouTube
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 09:39 UTC
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Record heatwaves and wildfires, widespread and severe flooding, massive sinkholes swallowing buildings and people, mass animal deaths, an asteroid exploding over Russia, thousands more fireballs lighting up the sky throughout the year, record-breaking blizzards snowfall, the coldest northern spring in 100 years, massive landslides, 'rare' tornadoes occurring in places they shouldn't, the widest tornado ever observed, more volcanic eruptions, more major earthquakes forming new islands, the strongest tropical storm in recorded history, successive hurricanes in Europe, the coldest temperature ever recorded, snow in Cairo... these are signs of climate change, aka Earth Changes.

Welcome to the new normal.

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Giant sinkhole swallows up Brazilian neighbourhood house by house, terrified inhabitants look on in disbelief

Janet Tappin Coelho
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 07 Jan 2014 09:09 UTC
  • The terrifying incident was captured on CCTV in the city of Abaetetuba
  • Gigantic craters, caused by water erosion, opened up in the ground
  • Electrical wires above the houses started snapping - giving a warning sign
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Terrifying: Residents in a town in the north of Brazil screamed in horror as they watched their homes disappear into massive sink holes on the weekend
Residents in a town in the north of Brazil screamed in horror as they watched their homes disappear into massive sink holes on the weekend.

The terrifying incident was captured on CCTV cameras in the city of Abaetetuba in the northern state of Para.

These pictures show the moment gigantic craters, caused by water erosion, open up in the ground and swallow dozens of houses.

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Truck falls into sinkhole on rain-soaked Hawaii island


Star Advertiser
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 08:12 UTC
Storm sets new rainfall record for Hilo

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Heavy rains drenched Hawaii island's Windward coast Monday morning, scattering runoff and debris across the area - and even causing a Paauilo Mauka road to collapse beneath a truck, according to officials.

More rain Monday afternoon and evening prompted a flash flood warning that's been extended through 8 a.m. today after radar showed heavy rain south of Hilo near Keaau at about 7:48 p.m.

Other locations in the warning include Waipio Valley, Paauilo, Laupahoehoe, and Hawaiian Paradise Park.

The National Weather Service said flooding was reported at Ainako Ave. and Kaumana Drive this evening. A landslide was also reported on Old Scenic Road in Papaikou.

The Hawaii County Civil Defense was alerted to the road collapse site on Pohakea Mauka Road, near its junction with Manienie Road, at about 8 a.m., Civil Defense administrator Darryl Oliveira said. The rain had caused a culvert beneath the street to shift, which then triggered the roadway's collapse as a Dodge pickup drove over it. The truck fell into a giant sinkhole-like crater, Oliveira said.

The truck's female driver emerged with minor injuries and "definitely very shaken," Oliveira said. County public works personnel are at the site and "trying to come up with a plan" for repair - but it likely will be a slow fix. Oliveira said.
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Cloud Lightning

Ho Ho Hole: Derbyshire field disappears into 130ft sinkhole - Caused by Christmas storms?

Kashmira Gander
The Independent
Mon, 30 Dec 2013 11:58 UTC
Torrential rain has caused the enormous ditch to appear in the Peak District
derbyshire sinkhole

Torrential rain over the festive period has caused a 130-ft deep and 160-ft-wide sink-hole to form in the Peak District.
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Berezniki, a Russian city riddled with giant sinkholes

Andrew E. Kramer
The New York Times
Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00 UTC
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© EnglishRussia.comA giant hole appeared right in the middle of Russian town Berezniki and has been growing ever since.

Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian fertilizer tycoon who in February bought the most expensive apartment ever sold in New York City - the $88 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West - may have done a lot for real estate values there. But here in this old mining city in the Ural Mountains, where he made his fortune, not just property values, but properties too, have been plunging.

Sinkholes are common hazards in mining regions, plaguing areas where miners have burrowed into layers of soluble minerals and accidental floods have followed. But in Berezniki, as often happens in Russia, the problem has been magnified by past practices in which safety was not always the foremost concern.

In the West, mines are usually located far from populous areas, to reduce the risks of sinkholes to homes and other buildings. But Berezniki, a city of 154,000 that began as a labor camp, was built directly over the mine - a legacy of the Soviet policy of placing camps within marching distance of work areas.

And so Berezniki is afflicted by sinkholes, yawning chasms hundreds of feet deep that can open at a moment's notice. So grave is the danger that the entire city is under 24-hour video surveillance. On a screen in the command center late last year, one such hole appeared as a small dark spot in a snowy field in the predawn hours, immediately threatening to suck in a building, a road and a gas station.

"I looked and said, 'Wow, a hole is forming,' " recalled Olga V. Chekhova, an emergency services worker who monitors the video. This was a small one by the standards of Berezniki, which has had three in the past four years. In fact, it has since been called "The Tiny One."

Comment: Another Russia city, Samara, is also being 'eaten alive' by giant sinkholes.

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