Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Sinkhole appears after storm

A large sinkhole, some 70m deep, has appeared in the ground, swallowing two buildings, during a heavy storm in Guatemala City. Following more than 1000mm of rainfall in a single storm event, many instances of flooding and local landslides were also reported. It is likely that the sinkhole, formed from dissolution of limestone over thousands of years, was infilled with sediment which was washed away as a result of the storm. The link above goes to a clip of the sinkhole on the BBC web site.
The image is from http://www.blindloop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Sinkhole.jpg. There are some other spectacular images at http://tinyurl.com/2942est.