Sinkholes
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South Africa, Johannesburg: Car Swallowed By Sink Hole

Phakamile Hlubi
Eyewitness News
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Susan Mottrami/iWNThe pothole in Fouurways that Orla Meaker fell victim to.
A Fourways woman escaped serious injury on Monday morning, when her car fell into a massive hole in the middle of the road as she was driving.

Orla Meaker was on the road in the early hours of the morning when her car was suddenly swallowed up by a gaping hole on Kingfisher Drive.

Apparently the 3m sinkhole had been caused by a burst water pipe which had eroded a section of the road overnight.

Meaker says her car may be damaged beyond repair.

"I'd say it's very bad. I'm not an expert but some of the gentlemen here guess that the gearbox is gone and the whole thing is a serious mess."
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US, Tennessee: Sinkhole Swallows Pool, Nears House


Elizabethton Star
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
A sinkhole has drained a family's swimming pool in Erwin and was growing in size.

Homeowner Brad Thelen said the noise of the sinkhole opening under the in-ground pool awakened his wife Chemene on Wednesday night, according to The Johnson City Press.

The hole was about 10 feet across Thursday afternoon. By Thursday evening, it had tripled in size and was not far from the Thelans' home. The family removed valuables and was staying with relatives until the sinkhole stabilized.

A playground at Love Chapel Elementary School, adjacent to the family's property, was roped off until seismologists examine the hole.

Source: The Associated Press
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US, New Hampshire:150-foot Manchester sinkhole swallows car

Pat Grossmith
Union Leader
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
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© Pat GrossmithManchester firefighters work to remove a car from a sinkhole at the intersection of North and Beech Streets in Manchester on Monday morning
A red Kia was swept into a huge sinkhole at the intersection of North and Beech streets Monday morning when a 12-inch, cast iron water main let go.

Water shot 6 feet into the air and dislodged 10-pound boulders, according to Kevin Clancy of 860-862 Beech St.

"It was wild," he said. His wife heard a "boom" and he looked out the window to see a car stuck in a sink hole, water shooting into the air and large rocks being thrown uphill.

Initially, he said, the car's front tires were in the hole, but "then the whole street fell in."

The entire car sank a few feet into the hole, which stretched across one lane of North Street for about 150 feet. Police closed a portion of Beech Street and North Street, and about 30 homes on Beech Street were without water until mid-afternoon.

Police said the driver thought it was a puddle and drove through it, ending up in the sink hole.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Oklahoma Massive sinkhole appears overnight

Joleen Chaney
kfor.com
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:38 UTC
Residents in Beckham County near Sayre say a massive sinkhole suddenly appeared overnight. They say it's so big a small house can fit inside it. Jack Damron cares for the property and says the hole formed just two days after Oklahoma's last earthquake about two weeks ago.

Experts say it most likely isn't related. Either way, the hole is still growing day by day. "Kind of spooky. You don't want to mess with it today," Damron said. Because whatever lies beneath the flat Oklahoma soil, isn't quite finished. "We've got to let it finish settling, because we don't know how deep it's going to get. It's still growing," he said "When it first formed you could actually sit here for 30 minutes and see stuff just move."

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Ambulance

US: Sinkhole swallows Texas teen standing on street corner


MSNBC
Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:20 UTC
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© UnknownReference Image, not article specific.
Houston-area residents have to wonder if they'll be next after a teen who was standing on a street corner was swallowed by a sinkhole that opened suddenly when an underground water main burst.

Giovanni Long, 16, told khou.com that he fell several feet and was under water for about 15 seconds as he tried to claw his way out of a hole 6 feet deep and 10 feet wide as he was walking in Kleinwood, a suburb northwest of downtown Houston.

"Everything beneath me crumbled," he told the website after the Monday afternoon incident. "I didn't know what to do."

"I was trying to dig my way out of the hole, but the ground kept breaking back into me," added Long, who finally got out with a few scratches on his back and a sprained ankle. "It's funny now that I think about it ... but when it happened, it was actually scary."

Why the 12-inch water line broke wasn't determined, but it's possible that recent rain after months of drought caused the ground to shift.

The drought itself caused daily water main breaks across Houston.
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Attention

US: Californian road slides into the sea after heavy rains


The Telegraph
Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:21 UTC
A large chunk of a Los Angeles coastal road slips into the Pacific ocean following a mudslide caused by heavy storms.

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Ambulance

US: Chunk of LA street, cliff slide into Pacific


MSNBC
Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:10 UTC
Los Angeles - Residents of a coastal neighborhood were worried Monday about safety and property values after a large chunk of a street and the coastal bluff it sat on crumbled into the ocean amid heavy rains on Sunday.

A section of Paseo Del Mar in the San Pedro area that for months had been creeping toward the ocean collapsed as a storm struck, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a statement. In recent weeks the section had been moving at about 4 inches a day.


"My greatest concern (is) that all these homes right here are going to end up in the water and that we're going to be separated and our own little island," said one resident interviewed by nbclosangeles.com just outside the closed-off area. "I have three kids and two grandkids and I want them to be able to have the ocean view and be able to stick their feet in the sand and not fall off a cliff."
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© Chuck Bennett/Torrance Daily Breeze/APA portion of Paseo Del Mar in San Pedro, Calif. slid into the ocean Sunday.
Another resident said locals were talking about how the slide would undermine property values.
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Ontario, Canada: Giant sinkhole closes section of Toronto's Bayview Ave


CBC News
Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:40 UTC
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© Unknown
Click here to see more pictures.

A large sinkhole that resembles something out of a Hollywood movie has closed a section of Bayview Avenue to traffic.

It happened overnight on Thursday after a water main break. Bayview Avenue just north of Steeles Avenue is closed between Proctor Avenue and Laureleaf Road as crews work to fix the buckled pavement.

In some sections, the crack is as wide as a traffic lane.

CBC's Lorenda Reddekopp was at the scene and said York Regional police officers were describing the nine-metre deep sinkhole as "something out of Jurassic Park."
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New York: Elderly man rescued from 8 foot-deep sinkhole


CBS
Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:49 UTC
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© WCBS/Mona Rivera/1010 WINSMichael Ciron, 80, stands near the 8-foot-deep sinkhole that opened up on his front lawn in Oceanside, L.I. Ciron fell into the hole Sunday while retrieving his newspaper.
Oceanside, New York - Firefighters rescued an 80-year-old Long Island man who had fallen into a sinkhole on his front lawn.

Michael Ciron had stepped onto his lawn Sunday morning to retrieve his newspaper when he fell into an 8-foot-deep sinkhole, reports CBS Station WCBS.

"I picked up the paper, before you know it, I fell into this here hole," Ciron told WINS Newsradio's Mona Rivera.

His daughter, Maria Ciron, was awakened by his screams. "I run to his room first thinking that maybe he fell down or something," she said.

She finally found her father outside, trying to dig himself out of the sinkhole.

"Taking the dirt from the higher part, scraping it down, and I finally got my head out," Ciron told WINS. His daughter called 911, and a short time later the Oceanside fire department arrived and freed him.
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South Carolina, US: Sinkhole grows larger in Georgetown, South Carolina office park


WCSC
Tue, 01 Nov 2011 13:45 UTC

Parking spots in front of Lindy Swails' insurance company are on the verge of being swallowed. A sinkhole, already three feet lower than other areas of the parking lot, is spreading to an office building that's home to his company and five others in the heart of Georgetown.

"It just happened all the sudden overnight," says Swails.

The business owner says early Saturday morning he noticed a dip outside of his front door. 24 hours later, the sinkhole had gotten much worse.

"I walked in the office," says Swails, "and I noticed the walls cracking and the doors buckling. The doors were jammed so bad I couldn't hardly get in."

And Swails isn't the only one concerned with how this will affect his workspace.
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