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| SameOldVardoger Great Old One Gender: Male |
 Posted: 24-02-2007 04:09 Post subject: Sinkholes! |
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| Quote: | Giant sinkhole in Guatemala swallows father, teens
Associated Press
Published Friday, February 23, 2007
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AP) -- A giant sinkhole opened before dawn Friday, swallowing several homes and a truck and leaving a father and two teenagers missing in Guatemala City.
Officials said the 100-meter-deep (330-foot-deep) sinkhole in a crowded neighborhood of poor, concrete homes was caused by recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main.
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National disaster coordinator Hugo Hernandez identified the missing as Domingo, Irma and David Sosyos, ages 53, 18 and 15, respectively. A body appeared in a river of sewage near the sinkhole, but it was unclear whether the corpse was a victim.
"The shaking of the house woke us up," said 26-year old Edward Ramirez, who lives 50 meters (50 yards) from the sinkhole and said residents had been hearing noises and feeling tremors for about a month. "People were shouting 'the electric posts are falling down!' We are going to a friend's house now, there's no way we'll stay here."
Authorities said the hole was extremely unstable, forcing the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people from their homes. Police helped residents, some even carrying refrigerators and televisions on their shoulders.
The pit was emitting foul odors, loud noises and tremors, and a rush of water could be heard from its depths. Authorities feared it could widen or others could open up.
Security officials were on guard for possible looters and to clear the area of onlookers.
Cristobal Colon, a spokesman for the municipal water authority, said the sewage main ruptured after becoming clogged. He said the city was aware of the blockage and the army had considered a controlled explosion to clear the pipe, which carries both rainwater and sewage for much of the capital.
Antonio Fuentes, 50, said he plans to abandon the run-down neighborhood he has called home for 15 years.
"Last night a friend had to take my handicapped wife out on motorcycle," he said. "Now I'm leaving for good, never to come back." |
Article link
A couple of good photos in this norwegian newspaper |
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skinny Roaring Fortean
Great Old One Joined: 30 May 2010 Total posts: 215 Location: Adelaide Age: 42 Gender: Male |
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| shellac7 Yeti Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Total posts: 77 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 02-06-2010 10:50 Post subject: Crews probe Guatemala sinkhole as neighbors flee |
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GUATEMALA CITY — A cavernous and almost perfectly round sinkhole swallowed an entire intersection in Guatemala City during a tropical storm, spooking people in the neighborhood but exciting geologists.
The hole is 66 feet (20 meters) across and plunges nearly 100 feet (30 meters) deep.
Geologists said Tuesday that the circular shape suggested a cave formation underneath, but what exactly caused the sinkhole was still a mystery.
"I can tell you what it's not: It's not a geological fault, and it's not the product of an earthquake," said David Monterroso, a geophysics engineer at the National Disaster Management Agency. "That's all we know. We're going to have to descend."
The sinkhole formed Saturday and gulped down a clothing factory about three miles (two kilometers) from the site of a similar sinkhole three years ago.
Neighbors said it was a miracle no factory workers died.
"The boys were lucky," resident Honora Oliva said. "They left at six that afternoon, an hour before the earth opened up."
Neighbors said a weekend security guard also was spared because he had left to tend to his house, which flooded from heavy rain as Tropical Storm Agatha bore down on Central America. The storm has killed at least 180 people.
Some neighbors believe one or two people might have disappeared, but authorities said no deaths had been reported.
Crews were waiting for blueprints of the city's drainage system before investigating further.
The 2007 sinkhole killed three people and swallowed several homes in the same area. It was blamed on rain and an underground sewage flow, but it is too early to say whether those problems are to blame this time, said Monterroso, who also investigated the previous incident.
Police and soldiers stood guard around the sinkhole to prevent the curious from getting too close. Most people living nearby have moved out, fearful the hole will expand and swallow more homes.
"We're not going to wait," said one man who declined to give his name. "We've already rented elsewhere and we're leaving now."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h9f2OfKr8ygFy00FuMUoDG689YBQD9G2SPD83 |
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| BlackRiverFalls I wear a fez now.
Joined: 03 Aug 2003 Total posts: 8716 Location: The Attic of Blinky Lights Age: 44 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 02-06-2010 12:36 Post subject: |
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I think the phrase "holy sh*t" comes to mind 
That i find genuinely quite frightening. Ghosts and ghoulies can scare me all they want, but the idea that the ground under your feet can suddenly turn into a 100ft drop |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-06-2010 19:50 Post subject: |
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Several posters on Unexplained Mysteries are insisting that the hole pretty much has to be a Photoshopped hoax.
I am NOT making that up. |
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| skinny Roaring Fortean
Great Old One Joined: 30 May 2010 Total posts: 215 Location: Adelaide Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-06-2010 09:41 Post subject: |
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Here's an interesting explanation.
Not a sinkhole.
| Quote: | Instead, Bonis prefers the term "piping feature" -- a decidedly less sexy label for the 100-foot deep, 66-foot side circular chasm. But it's an important distinction, he maintains, because "sinkholes" refer to areas where bedrock is solid but has been eaten away by groundwater, forming a geological Swiss cheese whose contours are nearly impossible to predict.
The situation beneath the country's capital is far different, and more dangerous. The lion's share of the city is built on pumice fill -- ash flows made up of loose, gravel-like particles deposited during ancient volcanic eruptions. In places, the debris is piled over 600 feet thick, filling up what would otherwise be a v-shaped valley of faulted bedrock.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/dont-call-the-guatemala-sinkhole-a-sinkhole.html
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Here's a good cross-section picture of the type of layering - not the current hole, I think
http://du-lich.chudu24.com/f/d/090311/guatemala-sink-hole-2.jpg |
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| skinny Roaring Fortean
Great Old One Joined: 30 May 2010 Total posts: 215 Location: Adelaide Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-06-2010 10:00 Post subject: |
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| BlackRiverFalls wrote: | I think the phrase "holy sh*t" comes to mind
That i find genuinely quite frightening. Ghosts and ghoulies can scare me all they want, but the idea that the ground under your feet can suddenly turn into a 100ft drop |
Indeed. One wonders where all the earth goes... and what it might feel like to go down with it.
Scenario:
Jesus is hammering some scavenged galvo atop his shanty to keep out the monsoonal rains and WHOOM his entire world drops out literally beneath him. He watches the everything he was recede until it is a tiny circle of light hundreds of feet above him. He pauses to take stock of his situation as he freefalls and realises that he might well never return. This strikes him as patently absurd. He takes out a piece of paper, sets a new ink cartidge into his antique pen and.. he thinks a while. He writes:
"I don't want a tickle. I just wanna ride my motorsickle.
I don't want a pickle. I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.
And I don't wanna die. I just wanna ride on my motorcy
cle." (Guthrie 1968)
Not to make light of the horror of those lost in such incidents and those left behind, but it does put one in mind of Lew Carroll.
Last edited by skinny on 03-06-2010 10:02; edited 1 time in total |
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| Mal_Content Great Old One Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Total posts: 779 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 03-06-2010 10:02 Post subject: |
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hmmm
I was thinking of posting this story in the Prisoner thread ... |
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| skinny Roaring Fortean
Great Old One Joined: 30 May 2010 Total posts: 215 Location: Adelaide Age: 42 Gender: Male |
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| OldTimeRadio Great Old One Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Total posts: 5539 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio USA Age: 72 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 03-06-2010 12:11 Post subject: |
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| In connection with the Guatemala City pit, let me highly recommend Lord Dunsany's short-short-short story "The Taking Up of Piccadilly." |
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| krakenten Great Old One Joined: 03 Feb 2012 Total posts: 175 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-03-2013 17:51 Post subject: |
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Today, a Florida man was swallowed by a sink hole that opened in his bedroom.
His brother tried to rescue him, but was unable to find him, he is 'presumed dead' May God rest his soul.
Such events are recorded in the Bible, and I for one, shall scoff no more. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 01-03-2013 18:36 Post subject: |
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| krakenten wrote: | | Today, a Florida man was swallowed by a sink hole that opened in his bedroom. |
Florida man swallowed by sinkhole in bedroom
[video]
SEFFNER, Fla. —
A man was missing early Friday after a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house near Tampa and his brother says the man screamed for help before he disappeared.
The 36-year-old man’s brother told rescue crews he heard a loud crash around 11 p.m. Thursday, then heard his brother screaming for help.
“When he got there, there was no bedroom left,” Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said. “There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up.”
The brother called 911 and frantically tried to help his brother. An arriving deputy pulled the brother from the still-collapsing house.
There’s been no contact with the man since then and neighbors on both sides of the Seffner home have been evacuated.
“We put engineering equipment into the sinkhole and didn’t see anything compatible with life,” Damico said. But Damico would not say that the man is presumed dead.
Damico said that at the surface, she estimates the sinkhole is about 30 feet across but officials say the sinkhole spreads to about 100 feet across below the surface.
“The entire house is on the sinkhole,” Damico said.
Engineers arrived at the scene later in the morning. From the outside, there were no cracks or visible signs of damage to the home. The front door was open, but taped off.
Janell Wheeler told the Tampa Bay Times she was inside the house with four other adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened.
“It sounded like a car hit my house,” she said.
It was dark. She remembered screams and one of her nephews rushing to rescue his brother, trapped in the debris.
Wheeler’s house was condemned. The rest of the family went to a hotel but she stayed behind with her dog, sleeping in her car.
“I just want my nephew,” she said through tears.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/nationworld/free/20130301tampa-area-man-swallowed-by-sinkhole.html
Frightful...  |
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| Monstrosa Joined: 07 Feb 2007 Total posts: 506 |
| Posted: 01-03-2013 20:26 Post subject: |
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| yes, I believe that in general Florida is as holey as a sponge. |
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| garrick92 Invisible Flaneur Joined: 29 Oct 2001 Total posts: 700 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-03-2013 22:06 Post subject: |
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| That story (the extradimensional sinkhole) is in CF's Wild Talents and what a great tale it is. I think the couple's surname was Crumpton, or something similar. Not really OT though. |
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| drbates Great Old One Joined: 16 Nov 2005 Total posts: 457 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 01-03-2013 22:14 Post subject: |
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| garrick92 wrote: | | That story (the extradimensional sinkhole) is in CF's Wild Talents and what a great tale it is. I think the couple's surname was Crumpton, or something similar. Not really OT though. |
I got the impression it as more recent than that. I can't remember what book it was in though. Probably the one with the Thunderbird photo.. |
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