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Thu 1 Mar, 2007 06:56 pm
A bit too horrid a story for Human Interest, perhaps... but damn!
Quote:Giant sinkhole swallows dozens of homes
The New Zealand Herald
Sunday February 25, 2007
A 100m-deep sinkhole killed two teenage siblings in Guatemala City.
GUATEMALA CITY - Three people were missing yesterday after a 100m-deep hole opened up in the middle of a Guatemalan neighbourhood, likely due to a burst sewer pipe.
"It sounded like a bomb was dropping. Boom!" said Carlos Gutierrez, 58, of the crater, which measured 70m in diameter.
The crater appeared in the capital's San Antonio neighbourhood on Friday. Authorities evacuated hundreds of people fearing more land could collapse into a fast-flowing river of sewage below.
The missing people had lived in a house that fell into the hole. Two bodies showed up about a mile downstream.
Neighbours said the ground had been shaking for weeks after a huge sewer pipe burst, making the ground underneath the houses unstable.
More images
Here's one of those extra photos:
How could a sewer breach effect ground 100 meters down? How could that hole have devoured dozens of homes? Was it an apartment building?
Its called tunnell erosion lilk.
Water flowing through certain types of soil carries away particulate matter. eventually a space develops but it is surrounded by soil. This is quite common where a pipe leaks and the water flows along the easiest path, generally alongside the pipe.
littlek wrote:How could that hole have devoured dozens of homes? Was it an apartment building?
Looks like it was a shantytown - corrugated iron roofs, Guatamala. Lots and lots of people living in tiny spaces.
But, do sewage pipes ever get to 100 meters down? Seems like they'd be no deeper than 30-50 feet.
But, thanks to you both for responding.
As in: 70m in diameter is a lot of makeshift huts.
Thats part of the gruesomeness also, to me - a subtext of the story seems to highlight the vulnerability of these people. Hole of 70m in diameter in a Houston suburb woulda swallowed perhaps two or three houses.. not dozens.
Course, 70m in diameter in downtown NY... But then, I bet that if "the ground had been shaking for weeks after a huge sewer pipe burst" in a fancy neighbourhood, something would have been done about it long time ago already.
I find it easily conceivable that a hole could develop that's 100 meters deep How else would caves form naturally? The sewer/waterpipe would only be a matter of meters but the water leaking from it could wet the soil for a long way down.
I have a block of land here that has a layer of topsoil about an inch deep (not uncommon in OZ) under that is a hard packed white clay so hard in summer you cant dig a post hole. below that again is yellow clay shot through with pebbles. In winter when the soil profile is wet through the top clay layer will support a vehicles but should you break through the crust that yellow clay is like soft cheese and you need a winch to get out.
littlek wrote:How could that hole have devoured dozens of homes? Was it an apartment building?
In the first picture it looks like it might be a two story building. Judging by the second photo; the second floor appears to have been divided into 10 "homes" and it appears when the corner fell in, everything attached got dragged in with it. Probably an attached shanty or two were at ground zero as well. What hideously bad luck.
Yahoo reports a third confirmed dead and "about a dozen homes".
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