© AP/Matt RourkeIn this Jan. 9, 2017, file photo, workers inspect a sinkhole in Philadelphia.
Dora Linda Nishihara, 68, was driving in San Antonio one dark evening in early December when she suddenly disappeared from sight. Later, her car, with her body inside, was found at the bottom of a 12-foot-deep (3.7-meter), water-filled sinkhole that had swallowed the road ahead of her. Two days later, a school bus driver in Brooklyn, New York, ran into an 8-foot-wide (2.4-meter) crater on his route. Luckily, no children were on board and the driver survived with minor injuries.
Just last week, massive holes opened up in New York City's lower Manhattan, suburban Atlanta and San Francisco.
Sinkholes are not a new phenomenon in the United States, especially in a half dozen states where the geology makes them more likely.
But a recent spate of huge, sudden-appearing caverns is prompting alarm because they're happening in places where they shouldn't, and now seem to be proliferating nationwide. The usual cause: crumbling water, drain and sewer pipes, often neglected by cities with budget problems.
Comment: Failing infrastructure is just one possible cause. Sinkholes are also linked to other earth changes and weather events. See Sinkholes: The groundbreaking truth for more details on how these events connect to current day cosmic and earth changes.