Sinkholes
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Massive sinkhole causes Disney-area resort villa to partially collapse

Sinkhole
© AP Photo/WFTV/Myrt PricePolice officers look on a hotel building after its foundation cracked in Clermont, Fla. Monday.
Clermont, Florida. - A sinkhole caused a section of a central Florida resort villa to partially collapse early Monday, while another section of the villa was sinking, authorities said.

About 30 percent of the three-story structure collapsed around 3 a.m. Monday, Lake County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Tony Cuellar said. The villa at the Summer Bay Resort had already been evacuated and no injuries were reported. Cuellar said authorities were also concerned about another section of the villa, which was sinking.

The sinkhole comes five months after one elsewhere in Florida killed a man.

Monday's sinkhole, which is in the middle of the villa, is about 40 to 50 feet in diameter, Cuellar said. He said authorities think it was getting deeper but couldn't tell early Monday if it was growing outward.

The villa houses 24 units and about 20 people were staying in it at the time, Cuellar said.

Roses

Body of trapped snowboarder found after Mount Hood ice cave collapse in Oregon

Colin Backowski
© FacebookCollin Backowski, 25, was standing just yards ahead of his group when the natural ice cave abruptly crashed down, Saturday. Authorities say he was buried in ice and snow the size of a school bus.
Collin Backowski, 25, was buried underneath ice and snow Saturday after an ice tunnel in Mt. Hood, Oregon collapsed above him.

Rescuers have recovered the body of a 25-year-old snowboarder who was buried alive in an ice cave collapse in Mount Hood, Oregon.

Friends of Collin Backowski of Pines, Colorado say he was standing only 30 feet to 40 feet ahead of them when the natural ice cave abruptly crashed down on Saturday.

Authorities say the lone snowboarder was instantly covered with a mass of ice and snow the size of a school bus. A full-scale search began on Saturday, and rescuers returned on Sunday with chainsaws and hand tools. They discovered Backowski's body under about 10 feet of snow.

Bizarro Earth

Meet the town that's being swallowed by a sinkhole




What could possibly go wrong when miners, frackers, and drillers reshape the geology beneath our feet? Talk to the evacuees of Bayou Corne, Louisiana.


About once a month, the residents of Bayou Corne, Louisiana, meet at the Assumption Parish library in the early evening to talk about the hole in their lives. "It was just like going through cancer all over again," says one. "You fight and you fight and you fight and you think, 'Doggone it, I've beaten this thing,' and then it's back." Another spent last Thanksgiving at a 24-hour washateria because she and her disabled husband had nowhere else to go. As the box of tissues circulates, a third woman confesses that after 20 years of sobriety she recently testified at a public meeting under the influence.

"The God of my understanding says, 'As you sow, so shall you reap,'" says Kenny Simoneaux, a balding man in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt. He has instructed his grandchildren to lock up the ammunition. "I'm so goddamn mad I could kill somebody."

But the support group isn't for addiction, PTSD, or cancer, though all of these maladies are present. The hole in their lives is a literal one. One night in August 2012, after months of unexplained seismic activity and mysterious bubbling on the bayou, a sinkhole opened up on a plot of land leased by the petrochemical company Texas Brine, forcing an immediate evacuation of Bayou Corne's 350 residents - an exodus that still has no end in sight. Last week, Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the company and the principal landowner, Occidental Chemical Corporation, for damages stemming from the cavern collapse.

Texas Brine's operation sits atop a three-mile-wide, mile-plus-deep salt deposit known as the Napoleonville Dome, which is sheathed by a layer of oil and natural gas, a common feature of the salt domes prevalent in Gulf Coast states. The company specializes in a process known as injection mining, and it had sunk a series of wells deep into the salt dome, flushing them out with high-pressure streams of freshwater and pumping the resulting saltwater to the surface. From there, the brine is piped and trucked to refineries along the Mississippi River and broken down into sodium hydroxide and chlorine for use in manufacturing everything from paper to medical supplies.

Bayou Corne is the biggest ongoing disaster in the United States you haven't heard of.

Question

Neighbors searching for answers after pond mysteriously drains overnight

Missing Pond
© Kelly Serafine
Blythewood, SC - A pond that was once a place of enjoyment for some families in Blythewood is nothing more than a big mud hole and why the water drained from the pond is a mystery.

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, something happened in the Dawson's Creek neighborhood that caused most of the water to rush out of a pond there.

For a while even nearby Wilson Boulevard was impassible between Rimer Pond Road and Blythewood High School as the water flowed away from the neighborhood.

Residents say a wall holding the water near Wilson Boulevard gave way, but what caused the failure is still not known. Some residents speculate utility work on Wilson Boulevard is the culprit, but that's not been substantiated.

The people who live there now have a big smelly mess to deal with.

Bizarro Earth

Sinkhole swallows car in South Florida


Miami Beach -- Crews are working to repair a sinkhole in South Florida, after a car fell in it!

The driver of a Toyota sports car says he was waiting at a stop sign, when he felt his car begin to sink. He tried to drive out, but it was too late.

The driver was able to get out of the car, and crews later pulled the vehicle out of the sinkhole.

City officials say they believe construction equipment caused two cracks in a water main that caused the hole to open. About 500 residents had to deal with a water outage.

Source: CNN

Bizarro Earth

Huge sinkhole swallows backhoe in downtown Montreal

Montreal Sinkhole
© Christinne Muschi/ReutersA construction vehicle lies where it was swallowed by a sinkhole on Saint-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal, August 5, 2013.
A section of a downtown commercial street swallowed a backhoe on Monday as city crews were getting ready to repair a leaky water main.

The backhoe had started to chip at asphalt near the corner of Ste-Catherine and Guy streets when the ground crumbled beneath it and the heavy machine tumbled in.

The driver of the backhoe was not injured but was taken to hospital to be checked out as a precaution, city officials said.

Emilie Miskdjian, a spokeswoman for the Ville-Marie borough, said the city was alerted to the possible water leak on the weekend.

She said preliminary indications were that the leak caused the problem but more inspections needed to be done to find the exact cause.

Bizarro Earth

Car nearly falls in giant sinkhole in China

Sinkhole
© Orange.co.uk
A driver had a lucky escape in southern China when a giant sinkhole opened up just inches in front of his car.

The 20ft wide hole - more than 20ft deep - appeared in Nanning city just days after local TV and phone companies had laid new cables under the highway.

"One second the road was there, the next it was just a hole," said one witness.

"The driver managed to stop just in time just as one of his wheels was touching the edge," they added.

And a giant truck ahead of the motor was almost pulled into the hole when its rear wheels were caught in the other side.

A police spokesman said: "We are investigating the cause of the collapse."

Bizarro Earth

Large sinkhole discovered in Western Kansas

Sinkhole
© WIBW.com
Wichita -- Watch your step if you venture into Wallace County in western Kansas.

The Wallace County sheriff says a large sinkhole was discovered about a week ago eight miles north of Wallace.

They're waiting on experts to come out and examine the sinkhole. They have no idea what caused it, and no injuries have been reported.

Map

25-meter diameter sinkhole opens up in New Zealand

New Zealand sinkhole
© APNA sinkhole has appeared on the eastern wall of the backfilled Golden Cross open pit
A 'sinkhole' has opened up near 'old underground workings' at the moth-balled Golden Cross mine.

It is about 25m across, with slumped material falling into the quite large hole and is situated on the eastern wall of the previously backfilled Golden Cross open pit.

Hauraki District Council strategic planning project manager Mark Buttimore said the hole was first noticed in early June when a helicopter crew flew over the area doing unrelated work. They contacted Coeur Gold about the sinkhole.

Mr Buttimore said council had a meeting at the site of the slump with Environment Waikato and New Zealand engineering firm Tonkin & Taylor (working for Coeur Gold).

"Tonkin & Taylor are monitoring the area, they have monitoring points near the slump which appears to be above old underground stopes which might not have been completely filled when Coeur finished its mining at Golden Cross," Mr Buttimore said.

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Pastor plagued by third massive sinkhole on church property in Enid, Oklahoma

pastor sinkhole

Monday night's heavy rainfall resurrected an old and dangerous problem for the pastor of a local church.


Pastor Wesley Byrd says a sinkhole that was 6 feet deep, 10 feet wide and 21 feet long opened up in the parking lot of Bethel Baptist Church.

This marks the third sinkhole to appear on the property since October.

Byrd said, "I was concerned because we have children that walk by here all the time, going to the shopping center, whatever. Certainly didn't want any one of them falling in it."

The City of Enid hired S.L Madison Construction to fix a broken storm sewer running through the area, which was blamed for causing the problem.

Unfortunately, that decision came too late to prevent this sinkhole from forming.