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© ABCActionNewsA 20-foot-wide Florida sinkhole swallowed a car and is still growing.
But there's one unfortunate occurrence that happens here that many Floridians may not know much about: sinkholes.
Florida has the highest occurrence of sinkholes in the country according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Sinkholes occur when water moves through the layer of limestone, which is just below the land surface. As water moves through small holes in the limestone, the holes enlarge and the rock eventually dissolves.
The result? A collapse of ground sediments that become too heavy after lots of rain. The depression or hole that occurs is therefore coined a "sinkhole." In extreme cases, a sinkhole can grow 40 to 60 feet deep and wide in a matter of hours, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's website.
Oviedo resident Tracy Squadrito learned all about sinkholes when the bottom of her kitchen sink fell through from outside water damage.
There is no timeline yet to re-open a Stephens County boat ramp on Lake Hartwell.
The gate to the boat ramp just off of U.S. 123 at the South Carolina state line is locked and the sign posted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers states that the area is closed due to a sinkhole.
The Corps of Engineers Hartwell Project operations manager Kenneth Bedenbaugh said that the Corps discovered the sinkhole at the start of the Fourth of July weekend.
"Late Friday evening, July 1, we discovered a sinkhole that had developed on an access road leading into the recreation area, which created a public safety hazard for anybody to be driving on that road," said Bedenbaugh. "Due to that, we immediately closed the park and it remained closed throughout the weekend."
According to Bedenbaugh, the area will remain closed until repairs take place.
The gate to the boat ramp just off of U.S. 123 at the South Carolina state line is locked and the sign posted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers states that the area is closed due to a sinkhole.
The Corps of Engineers Hartwell Project operations manager Kenneth Bedenbaugh said that the Corps discovered the sinkhole at the start of the Fourth of July weekend.
"Late Friday evening, July 1, we discovered a sinkhole that had developed on an access road leading into the recreation area, which created a public safety hazard for anybody to be driving on that road," said Bedenbaugh. "Due to that, we immediately closed the park and it remained closed throughout the weekend."
According to Bedenbaugh, the area will remain closed until repairs take place.
© Scripps Media, Inc.
They say a water main break has caused the sinkhole sometime early Saturday. They've placed road closure signs and barricades at the intersection to turn motorists away. Engineers say the intersection will be closed until repairs are made sometime in the next week.
The fire department says the sinkhole has taken a fire hydrant out of service and the hole will have an impact on safety services and convenience to residents in the area.
It's recommended that if you drive through the area that you seek an alternate route.
© WKYC-TV
Fear of the unknown may run much deeper.
The point man for Medical Mart construction, Jeff Appelbaum, says he can't say yet what the cause of the crack is or what the contributing factors are.
Appelbaum isn't passing on or shouldering the blame, but the construction team is investigating the cause.
Appelbaum says the excavation is supported by a massive dirt mound and earth anchors on the north side of St. Clair Avenue.
Still, the street split this seam.
A sinkhole up to 100m long and 50m deep has opened up on a south-east Queensland beach.
The hole appeared at Inskip Point, Rainbow Beach, on Saturday night and continued to grow yesterday. It is estimated to be up to 50m deep.
Hervey Bay man Ron Morgan told the Fraser Coast Chronicle he could only watch in shock as a small hole turned into a gaping chasm 30 metres wide and kept on growing.
© Mike Carroccetto / The Ottawa CitizenThis sinkhole is located on Hwy. 148 between Luskville and Quyon near Ch. Parker. A detour is in place.
Remarkably, the family living next to the giant gap owns a construction company with expertise in exactly the type of work that will be needed to fix the road.
Not only does James Nugent, of R.H. Nugent Construction, have 35 years of experience in the field, he has the heavy machinery parked only a few hundred meters from the caved-in road.
"We were called in right off the bat," he said. "There's nothing signed, but we probably will be proceeding with the work under an emergency situation. They want a company that can start right away."
Nugent said the large pipe that ran under that stretch of the highway seems to have been blocked at the intake. The torrents of water late last week stressed the situation causing the pipe to buckle and the ground above the pipe became waterlogged and gave way.
© Glenn Barnes / The Courier-Mail Big Bite: Inskip Peninsula campers cautiously check out the sink hole.
The hole opened up on the popular stretch of beach about 10.30am and by mid-afternoon it looked like a giant bite had been taken out of the coastline.
Campers on Inskip Peninsula watched in awe as chunks of sand were sucked out to sea, followed by trees and signs.
Visitor Rhonda Harris said it was a "phenomenon''.
"When we first came up about 11am the water was actually bubbling like it was boiling,'' she said.
"We saw the 'no camping' sign get washed out.''
Camper Shane Hillhouse said four-wheel drives had been travelling along the popular stretch of sand, near Inskip Peninsula, shortly before the hole appeared.
© UnknownReference Image, not actual.
Heavy rains opened a section of road 10 miles north of Reliance, South Dakota, about 60 feet wide and 50 feet deep that was obscured partly by an uphill grade, said Lieutenant Alan Welsh of the South Dakota Highway Patrol.
The vehicles plunged into the crevice and down into a normally dry creek bed that had been swollen by up to 6 inches of rain, Welsh said. The creek bed flows toward the Missouri River east of where the crashes occurred.
Both of the motorists were from nearby towns. Police identified them as a 56-year-old Chamberlain woman who was found in her vehicle about 100 yards from the crash site and a 61-year-old Lower Brule woman found four miles downstream.
State transportation officials have closed the road.
© Unknown
"It is my sincere appeal to the government of India to monitor seismic activities in the area before any major disaster takes place," Ramesh Singh, who had extensively studied the seismology in that region, said in a statement as concern mounted over cracks being formed in several districts of Uttar Pradesh.
"If the orientations of such long cracks are in the east-west direction, then the cracks could be due to stress on the surface of the earth due to motion of this massive craton (granitic body) which is exposed near Jhansi," Singh said.
Singh, who was a senior professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K), is now professor at George Mason University in Washington and vice chair of GeoRisk Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics.
He said this massive body underlying the region is inclined towards northeast with depth reaching 300-500 m near Kanpur and 1,200 m in Lucknow. He said he and his colleagues at IIT-K had studied the configuration of this craton in 1990 using magnetotelluric method.
Comment: The above is one we missed from 2008, but this report came in today, 12 July 2011:
US: Lenoir, North Carolina sinkhole evidence of a possible wider problem
These reports are from just the past month:
South Carolina, US: Sinkhole Closes Stephens County Boat Ramp
U.S.: Fairfield Township deals with sinkhole
Enormous sinkhole swallows south-east Queensland Rainbow beach
Canada: Downpour Leaves 18-metre Sinkhole in Ontario Highway
Australia: Sinkhole swallows south-east Queensland beach
North Dakota, US: Sinkhole closes Fargo overpass
US: 45' deep sinkhole appears in Pittsburgh parking lot
Big Apple, Cracked! New York, US: Midtown sinkhole stops rush hour traffic, baffles investigators
A collection of sinkhole images from around the world
The planet is literally opening up!