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Philippines: Sinkhole Stirs Village Still Nervous on Quake

Carmel Matus and Jhunnex Napallacan
Inquirer News
Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00 UTC
sinkhole
© Aldo Nelbert BanyanalResidents of Barangay Cambuang, Dumanjug gather near a sinkhole in a farm few meters from the national road. They said the sinkhole is growing and has already swallowed an electric post and a small mango tree.
Residents of a village here expressed alarm over a sinkhole that formed after an explosion, reviving tension in a community that is still nervous following an intensity 6.9 earthquake recently.

The hole was first discovered by a farm caretaker in Barangay Cambuang on Friday. It was initially the size of a frying pan, said Walter Pesablon, 36, who was watching over a 3-hectare farm in the village.

Pesablon said he didn't pay much attention to the hole at first, but when he returned to look at it after having breakfast, he noticed the soil moving and cracks forming around the hole.

An hour later, an explosion shattered the early morning silence of the village.

Pesablon said he checked again and saw a hole with a diameter of about 10 meters. By noon, it grew to 12 meters, the farm caretaker said. The next day, the hole had grown to about 20 meters in diameter and it appeared to be further increasing in size.
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Bizarro Earth

Russia: Giant Sinkhole in Dagestan

UfoScandinavia
derbent.tv
Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:48 UTC
Sinkhole near the village of Gurbuki Karabudakhkent in Dagestan. Scientist are trying to find out what caused this giant sinkhole.
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Russian city livid after toddler lost in urban sinkhole


RT
Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:58 UTC
Russia sinkhole
© RIA Novosti/Nikolay PahomovMother and her child fall in hole in Bryansk.
A normal weekend stroll with her one-and-a-half year-old son turned tragic for a young mother in the western Russian city of Bryansk, when the ground opened up under her feet.

­Tatyana Didenko, 26, and her only son Kirill fell into a sinkhole on a busy street in Bryansk Sunday. The woman was saved by her husband Vladimir Didenko, a traffic police officer - someone called him shortly following the accident, and he was not far from the scene, Komsomolskaya Pravda reports. "He pulled his wife out, she caught the edge of the ditch and held on," witnesses told the newspaper. "But he couldn't manage to save the child," they added.
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Pennsylvania, US: Giant sinkhole opens in Homewood


wpxi.com
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:58 UTC
A collapsed sewer line caused a giant sinkhole to open up in Homewood on Thursday morning.

Officials from Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority said a 20-inch sewer line collapsed and caused the sinkhole on Brushton Avenue just before 3 a.m.

Loretta Cousin said the situation could have been a lot more dangerous.

"Someone could have easily driven through there," Cousin said. "That ground just sunk, and cars can't go over it."
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Pennsylvania, US: Massive sinkhole prompts evacuations, need to move dozens of graves and relocate families


wfmz.com
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:48 UTC

A broken water main may be to blame for creating a sinkhole that has put a dozen nearby homes and scores of grave sites in peril.

The reports of the sinkhole began coming in around 9 a.m. Thursday from the 300 block of N. 10th St. in Allentown.

Officials evacuated at least 15 homes in the area. The fate of those homes has yet to be determined.

Inspectors spent the afternoon evaluating their structural integrity, but won't know what's up until the size of the sinkhole is calculated.

Several of the homes have shifted because of the sinkhole, leaving cracks inside, said fire officials.

Many of the evacuees will spend the night elsewhere, worrying about what could happen.

"Three of the homes have major shifting issues that you can physically see. You can see the doors don't open, cracks in the walls and in the foundations," said Asst. Chief, Lee Laubach, Allentown Fire Dept. "So, those are the three no-go homes right now."
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US: Sinkholes swallow more cars! This time TWO cars are swallowed at an intersection in Polk City, Florida

Elvia Malagon
The Ledger
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:34 UTC
Gigi Wilkins spent the week watching special effects at Disney World, but on Thursday she saw something much more earth shattering.

Literally.

Her vehicle was swallowed by a sinkhole Thursday morning at a rest stop off of Interstate 4 westbound near mile marker 46. Wilkins' 2008 white Ford Escape fell into the hole and her husband's Hyundai Santa Fe was on the verge of falling into the hole located in the rear parking lot of the rest area.

The North Port couple was driving home from Orlando after spending a week
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© Ernst Peters/The LedgerDOT officials stand next to a 30 ft wide sinkhole that opened in a rest area on the west bound side of I-4 west of Old Grade Rd., near Polk City, Florida, Wednesday. Two vehicles including a Ford Escape were tempoararily stuck in the hole.
vacationing with family and seeing shows at Disney World. They were parked alongside each other with one parking space between the vehicles.

Wilkins, 53, said she heard a cracking sound as she walked out of the bathroom toward her vehicle around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. She said she started trembling as she watched the ground around her vehicle sink in.
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US: Another sinkhole swallows another car, this time in Texas

Kai Porter
ktsm.com
Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:28 UTC

Customers in a Lower Valley neighborhood have running water again after broken pipe shut off service this morning. That water main break created a giant sink hole, that was big enough to swallow part of a police car.

Neighbors near the intersection of Rusk and Pecos woke up to quite the mess this morning. El Paso Water Utility crews spent the morning pouring dirt into the large sink hole that opened up during this morning's water main break. They had to shut off water to about 40 neighbors to fix it.

"That's really been hard," said April Gerome, who lives nearby. "There's been a lot of racket out here where they've been pumping water because the mud was up to the curb. You couldn't get in or out. It's really been something!"

Gerome woke up around 2:15 this morning to a strange sound coming from her front yard.
"I heard what sounded like water rushing," she said. She opened her front door and couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"To my shock there was just a river of water running though the front yard," she said.
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US: Sinkhole Closes Another California Road

Alex Kacik
Noozhawk
Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:20 UTC
Caltrans says the cause is unknown but expects the road to be closed for less than a week for repairs

Foothill Road in Santa Barbara between Morada Lane and Northridge Road shut down Tuesday because of a sinkhole in the roadway.

Caltrans was alerted to the hazard at 11 a.m. Tuesday and expects the road to be closed for less than a week while repairs are made, spokesman Colin Jones said.

"We're not sure the cause of it, but the the roadway is sinking and there's a depressed section but it hasn't cracked," he said. "We saw utility gas lines there and called maintenance crews immediately. We don't want people driving on unstable or hazardous roadway."

Traffic is being detoured through Willowglen Road and Calle Cita as well as Grove Lane.

"Traffic is getting pretty crazy. What I recommended to my family was to stay as far away from Foothill as you can," said Joe Guzzardi of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Services. "Even upper State Street is gridlocked, and it will only get worse as it gets closer to 5 p.m."
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US: Mysterious sinkhole formations continue in Georgetown


Georgetown Times
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:10 UTC
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South Carolina - Here we go again. Another sinkhole formed this week on the edge of Georgetown's Historic District.

This one is located near the corner of Highmarket and Dozier streets, across from where another sinkhole was repaired by the South Carolina Department of Transportation earlier this month.

The deep hole is outside the office of Waccamaw Regional Council of Governments but there are no new cracks on the walls of that building, according to Executive Director Sarah Smith.

City Administrator Chris Eldridge said the DOT will investigate the cause and make repairs.

He said it is believed the new hole was caused a leaking pipe, the same thing that caused a recent sinkhole at the Highway 17 entrance to Bank of America.
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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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