Sinkholes are quite common occurrences in the world. But most go without notice since they are usual matters that appear either where no one notices, or in some schmuck’s backward. A sinkhole – as I learned from reading the “Science Is Cool” feature on my cereal bock – often is the result of a ground well being drained, and the previous water was holding up the ground but now that all the water has been sucked or evaporated the ground is standing over a hole and then simply collapses.
This takes place quite frequently in south Florida where many homes have backyard wells and then they drain their water and eventually get stuck with a sinkhole. But this is often trivial. But Guatemala has is now home to the mother of all sinkholes:
… a massive, spontaneous sinkhole (“hundimiento”) that appeared today in Zone 2 of Guatemala City, after overwhelming saturation of rains from tropical storm Agatha. Not Photoshop, sadly: these happen from time to time during major storms in part because of unstable geology (and bad urban engineering—read more about it in the comments). There are rumors of similar sinkholes now forming nearby.
This is almost literally a sinkhole to China. There’s a Simpson episode like that.
