Sinkholes
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Sinkhole swallows backyard in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania

Precious Petty
lehighvalleylive.com
Tue, 15 Jul 2014 06:01 UTC
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© Express-Times | PRECIOUS PETTYTwo Fountain Hill homes were evacuated Monday, July 14, 2014, after a sinkhole opened up at North Clewell and Long streets.
A set of twin homes in Fountain Hill were evacuated Monday after a sinkhole opened up in the 600 block of North Clewell Street.

Following heavy rainfall, the sinkhole swallowed a section of one home's backyard and extended beneath the porches and along the foundations of both residences near North Clewell's intersection with Long Street, not far from borough hall.

Assistant Chief David Boehrer, of the Fountain Hill Fire Department, said the sinkhole was spotted at about 6:25 p.m. and firefighters were called soon afterward to 605 and 607 N. Clewell St.

No one was hurt and both homes, which remain uninhabitable, were safely evacuated, he said today. The residents -- an elderly couple and a single man -- are staying with relatives who live in the area, he said.
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Huge sinkhole appears in Madison, Florida

Garin Flowers
firstcoastnews.com
Wed, 16 Jul 2014 04:57 UTC
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David Williams left his home at 1:45 p.m. to visit family last Monday. He says by the time 2:20 p.m. hit, it happened that quickly.

He received a call that a sinkhole had opened up across the street from his home. He figured it would be pretty minor, but came home to see his entire road was blocked off and the sinkhole was quite large.

"I never thought that I'd be worried about a sinkhole. Lo and behold, I come home and I was like, 'Whoa.'"

The sinkhole is located on Celosia Way off of Country Kitchen Road in Madison, Florida. Madison is a small town about an hour east of Tallahassee.

Geologists are now studying the hole as it continues to grow bigger. Celosia Way around Williams' home is shut down, but he's able to get in and out.

Even though the large hole is directly across the street, he says he has no plans on leaving his home, unless the cracks get closer.


Comment: The earth is opening up! See chart below.



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Switzerland hit by landslides following heavy rainfall


thelocal.ch
Sun, 13 Jul 2014 13:44 UTC
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© Graubünden Police/ AFP/FileDamage from a landslide in eastern Switzerland in 2012.
An 82-year-old woman was found dead in a Swiss stream on Sunday, police said, as heavy rain and landslides halted train and road traffic near the city of Bern, the capital.

Police said that the woman died in Thörishaus, a village southwest of Bern, as parts of the country were hit by a deluge.

In the nearby town of Köniz, 200 firefighters worked throughout the night to deal with flooded streams and landslides, evacuating several homes.

Landslides blocked the railway between Bern and the western city of Fribourg and between Montreux and Zweisimmen, while flooding cut the line between the capital and the town of Thun, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) said.

Buses were pressed into service to provide alternative transport between Bern and Fribourg.
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Bizarro Earth

Large crater appears in Siberian peninsula


The Siberian Times
Tue, 15 Jul 2014 01:42 UTC
Mysterious 'gigantic' hole in remote region spotted by helicopters over gas-rich Yamal peninsula.
Siberian Sinkhole_1
© Konstantin NikolaevThe crater is large enough for several Mi-8 helicopters to fly into it.
The striking puncture in the earth is believed to be up to 80 metres wide but its depth is not estimated yet. A scientific team has been sent to investigate the hole and is due to arrive at the scene on Wednesday.

The cause of its sudden appearance in Yamal - its name means the 'end of the world' in the far north of Siberia - is not yet known, though one scientific claim is that global warming may be to blame.

There is additionally speculation it could be caused by a space object - perhaps a meteorite - striking earth or that it is a sinkhole caused by collapsing rock beneath the hole caused by as yet unknown factors.

The giant hole appeared close to a forest some 30 kilometres from Yamal's biggest gas field Bovanenkovo. Experts are confident that a scientific explanation will be found for it and that it is not - as one web claim suggested - evidence 'of the arrival of a UFO craft' to the planet.
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Ten metre wide sinkhole closes Gold Coast Highway in Australia

Amy Remeikis
Brisbane Times
Sun, 13 Jul 2014 10:06 UTC
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© Channel NineA sink hole has created traffic chaos on the Gold Coast.

A major water main break has led to a 10 metre sink hole on the Gold Coast Highway and it could take another 24 hours to completely repair the site.

Police spent hours at the site directing traffic around the giant hole, which reduced the Gold Coast Highway at Margaret Street in Broadbeach to one lane on Sunday.

Police signed off from the area just before 2pm, but repairs are on-going.

Gold Coast Council staff have been on the scene since early Monday morning, working to patch the road.

Motorists are still advised to avoid the area.

On Monday morning, a Gold Coast City Council spokesman said the site was cleared overnight.

Council crews were waiting for Energex to disconnect utilities so they could get in and repair the pipe.

It would take another 24 hours before the site was completely repaired but the spokesman stressed residents still had water supplies.

One lane of the Gold Coast Highway remained closed on Monday morning.


Comment: As with many of these water main break and pipe bursting explanations for the sinkholes phenomena, quite often nowadays it's really the other way round, the sinkholes open up first then cause the pipe fractures. The earth is opening up! See chart below.



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Huge sinkhole swallows 3 trailers in Fredericton, Canada


cbc.ca
Mon, 07 Jul 2014 10:30 UTC
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© Lauren Bird/CBCA trailer was stuck in a sinkhole at the Hartt Island RV Resort in Fredericton on Sunday.
Post-tropical storm Arthur's pounding rain caused a massive sinkhole that swallowed three trailers and one car at a Fredericton campground on Saturday.

Nadine Cormier was at the Hartt Island RV Resort on Saturday afternoon and watched as the sinkhole appeared.

"I watched a car go down into the sinkhole. Disappeared completely - gone. It ended up quite aways away," Cormier said.

Cormier said they saw some people "screaming and yelling" at the beginning.

"When we saw that [sinkhole], we went and banged on all the campers," Cormier said.

"There were a few tense moments but nobody got hurt."

Cormier said all of the campers started doing whatever they could to help people stay out of danger.

Post-tropical storm Arthur brought heavy rain across New Brunswick over the weekend.

Noonan recorded 140 mm of rain on Saturday. The Canadian Hurricane Centre said 100 km/h gusts of wind were recorded in Fredericton.

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80 foot deep sinkhole appears in Fairbanks man's yard, Alaska

Matt Buxton
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Sat, 05 Jul 2014 10:02 UTC
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© Matt Buxton / News-MinerAl Schultz peers down a sinkhole on July 4, 2014, while his granddaughter Keirra watches from the driveway. The hole appeared in the front of his home in the Gold Hill area of Fairbanks.
A Gold Hill resident got a nasty surprise after returning from vacation this week when he discovered a sinkhole diving to depths of a stomach-churning 70 to 80 feet in his front yard.

Al Schultz on Friday had cordoned off the roughly 4-foot wide hole that appeared in a roadside ditch and covered the opening with wood planks. Schultz didn't have a clear solution to the problem.

"I called about three excavation companies and with the holiday got one to come out and look at it," he said. "We tied a truck hitch to his rope and threw it down there."

But the contractor's rope was too short and the hitch dangled somewhere down the hole, Schultz said. To reach the bottom, Schultz tied another length of rope to the contractors' rope.

They measured 82 feet.

But just what it looked like down there, they didn't know, and Schultz couldn't get a quote for the fix at the time.

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Patio falls into 10-foot deep sinkhole in West Town, Chicago


abc7chicago.com
Fri, 04 Jul 2014 10:12 UTC
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Firefighters evacuated two buildings in West Town after a patio leading to the main building collapsed into a sinkhole 10 feet deep.
Chicago firefighters evacuated a coach house and four-story building in West Town after a patio collapsed into a 10-foot deep sinkhole early Friday morning.

The Department of Buildings says it is now working with the building owners who, officials said, are taking full responsibility and control of the situation. Tenants are being relocated as crews evaluate the patio.

Tenants said the collapse at 1 a.m. Friday at 1421 West Chicago Avenue sounded like a bomb. An entire concrete section between the main building and a coach house fell 10 feet into a what the landlord described as an unused, old, underground walkway. Patio furniture and air conditioning units also fell into the sinkhole, which measures 20 feet wide and 20 feet long.

No one was on the patio when it collapsed and no one was injured in the incident. Firefighters had to evacuate three people from the coach house since the patio was their only entrance. Fire crews broke through the back of the carriage house to do that.


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Boy injured after car drives into sinkhole in Burlington, Illinois

Elena Ferrarin
Daily Herald
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 06:16 UTC
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A giant sinkhole swallowed a car in Kane County after Monday night's storms
Knowing that her son was able to take a few steps from his hospital bed to a chair Wednesday morning was an immense relief, his mother said, but the enormity of his injuries also overwhelmed the Elgin woman.

Benjamin Hernandez, 15, was seriously hurt a day earlier when the car driven by his mother plunged into a sinkhole on a rural road south of the village of Burlington.

San Juanita Pineda was delivering newspapers in the pre-dawn hours and did not see the sinkhole that was 10 feet in diameter and deep enough that her Ford Taurus was lodged below ground level. A short time later, a pickup truck drove over the car in which the two were pinned.

Benjamin is in the pediatric intensive care unit of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood with a spinal fracture, a broken rib and a broken jaw, his mother said. He also lost some teeth.


Comment:


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Blue Planet

Canada: Sinkhole closes west Quebec highway


CBC News
Wed, 02 Jul 2014 19:08 UTC
Quebec Sinkhole
© CBC NewsPolice closed Highway 148 in both directions after a 10-metre wide sinkhole opened Wednesday morning in the highway's eastbound lane.
Pontiac Mayor Roger Larose says he warned the province a month ago about problems with a highway culvert that likely caused a large sinkhole to appear on Highway 148 on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning a large sinkhole 10 metres deep and 10 metres wide formed on Highway 148's eastbound lanes, closing the highway in both directions between the communities of Quyon and Luskville, both of which are part of the municipality of Pontiac.

Pontiac Mayor Roger Larose said Wednesday he and his staff told the provincial government a month ago that the culvert was blocked.

He said workers did come to fix the problem, but said the culverts should have been monitored.

"They should have been aware of this before us. They aren't organized and I sure am not impressed," said Larose.

A spokesperson with Quebec's transportation ministry told CBC News recent heavy rains and the Canada Day storm may have contributed to the sinkhole's formation over the culvert.

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