The earth is patient. It sits silently while we abuse its generosity and ruin its beauty. But when the world we live in decides it has had enough, it can strike back in the deadliest way possible. The scariest part? There’s often no telling when it will.
Among those unpredictable natural disasters are sinkholes. Although induced sinkhole development is predictable, naturally developed ones are not and can be pose serious threat. Here are some incredible photographs of sinkholes captured through the years.
1. A giant sinkhole caused by the rains of Tropical Storm Agatha is seen in Guatemala City on May 31, 2010.
2. A damaged road after a portion of it collapsed after storms, near the Palo Blanco village on Spain’s Canary island of Tenerife, November 23, 2009.
3. A large sinkhole opened on East Monument Street in Baltimore in summer 2012.
4. Cars in a sinkhole, caused when a road collapsed into an underground cave system, in the southern Italian town of Gallipoli, March 30, 2007.
5. Local residents inspect a road that collapsed when a flash flood swept through Toowoomba, a town just west of Brisbane January 10, 2001.
6. The Summer Bay Resort in Clermont, Florida, Monday, August 12, 2013. Guests had only 10 to 15 minutes to escape.
7. A car carrying two passengers fell into a sinkhole in Baltimore on April 28, 2004.
8. A woman looks into a 10 foot by 10 foot sinkhole that appeared in her driveway in March 2003.
9. Machinery is used to fill a sinkhole on January 28, 2013. The hole measured about 1,000 square feet across and was around 30 feet deep.
10. The site of a huge sinkhole which occurred overnight in Beijing on April 26, 2011.
11. A car sits in a giant sinkhole in Minnesota, June 20, 2011.
12. A helicopter hovers over a sinkhole that’s 120-feet wide and 180-feet deep in a New Wales plant June 29, 1994.
13. A home sits near a sinkhole, about 100-feet wide and 50-feet deep, Saturday, May 5, 2012, in Windermere, Florida.
14. Workers look into a sinkhole caused by a broken water main in Chicago, Illinois, April 18, 2013.
15. Rescue workers carry out the body of a victim in a road cave-in accident in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, May 21, 2013.
16. A firefighter stands next to a sinkhole in Taiyuan, Shanxi, December 26, 2012.
17. March 12, 2008, this sinkhole was caused by a storm that sunk numerous boats and caused extensive damage in the Biscay area.
18. Bystanders look at a collapsed section of Shunwai Road in Nanchang, China’s Jiangxi province, April 25, 2007.
19. Rescue workers remove a bus with a crane from a Lisbon sinkhole November 25, 2003.
20. Pamela Knox waits for rescue after a massive sinkhole opened up underneath her car in Toledo, Ohio on July 3, 2013. She was finally rescued with no injuries.
21. A tractor was swallowed by a sinkhole on Saint-Catherine Street in downtown Montreal, August 5, 2013.
22. A tanker fell into a sinkhole on a road in Xi’an, Shaanxi on July 27, 2013.
23. People stand by a sinkhole in Fukou county, Hunan province, January 12, 2013.
24. The debris of a residential building and a destroyed road in the village of Nachterstedt, July 18, 2009. 3 residents are still missing.
25. A sinkhole damaged an on-ramp to Interstate 15 in San Diego on February 24, 1998.
26. A tsunami hit in Nagapattinam, a town in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, December 27, 2004 causing various sinkholes.
27. A sinkhole near Qingquan primary school in Dachegnqiao town of Ningxiang on June 15, 2010. The hole which is 492 feet wide and 164 feet deep, has been growing since it first appeared in 2010 and has destroyed 20 houses so far.
28. A crater, which the Libyan government said was caused by coalition air strikes, is seen at an area in Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli, May 12, 2011.
29. A truck is in a sinkhole after part of the structure of a bridge collapsed into a river in Changchun, Jilin, May 29, 2011.
30. The damage after a section of a road collapsed in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Southern Poland, December 19, 2012. The sinkhole was 33 feet deep and 164 feet wide.
31. Workers repair a sinkhole on a road in Xi’an, Shaanxi, May 27, 2012.
32. Policemen check a sinkhole in Hefei, Anhui on August 8, 2009.
33. A stranded car is hoisted from a sinkhole in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, September 7, 2008.
34. Rescue workers on a road in Loudi, Hunan June 18, 2013. The road surface sank after a truck drove past.
35. A view of the damaged Gran Marical de Ayacucho highway in the state of Miranda on December 1, 2010.
Via SlipTalk