Dot Shot: Sinkhole in Guatemala City

This astonishingly unnerving photograph was posted today on the Flickr.com feed of the Guatemalan government and shows a seemingly bottomless sinkhole that opened up on Sunday in Guatemala City as a swath of Central America was drenched by tropical storm Agatha. Click here for the high-resolution version, if you dare. The storm only briefly hit tropical storm strength on Saturday as it came ashore from the Pacific Ocean over the weekend, but the death toll had risen to 115 at last count. Here’s a street-level view.

I heard about the image through the Twitter feed of Steve Silberman, a writer for Wired and other magazines. Here’s a lot of background on Florida’s many sinkholes.

President Álvaro Colom’s government has declared a state of public calamity in the Escuintla, Sacatepéquez and Guatemala departments, according to news agencies, in part because the Pacaya volcano near the capital erupted Friday, injuring many people and killing a television reporter.

Source: By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Video View of Guatemala Sinkhole

Just in case anyone had doubts about the reality of the extraordinary sinkhole that formed in a crowded district of Guatemala City — following a similar incident in the city in 2007 — this Associated Press video report closes the case. [There's more on Guatemala City's shaky underpinnings in the Daily Beast.]

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

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Deep Hole In Guatemala

The Gates of Hell Just Opened In Guatemala

"This can't be real" was my first thought. Then I checked the source: The Guatemalan government. This sinkhole appeared last sunday in a street intersection of Ciudad de Guatemala. Just looking at the photo gives me vertigo.

Click on the images to see the high resolution version.

A sinkhole is a natural depression caused by the removal of underground soil by water. Usually, it happens when the substrate is formed by limestone, carbonate rock, salt beds or any other rock that is easily eroded by water streams. The process could be slow, but sometimes the land just cracks open without notice. In this case, it happened suddenly, swallowing an entire house. The cause: Massive underground water torrents created by tropical storm Agatha.

Sinkholes' size ranges from low terrain depressions to hundred of meters. Unlike the similar sinkhole that killed two teens in 2007, there seems to be no victims. At least one local newspaper is reporting one person dead, but the authorities have not confirmed it. Some neighbors claim that a whole three-story building and a house fell into the hole.



Source: gizmodo.com