Huge Hole in Quito, Ecuador
Photo by Stern. A huge hole in the ground ate a part of the road in the Ecuador capital city Quito after heavy rains in the beginning of April, 2008. According to Latin American news agency Prensa Latina the hole measured 262 feet (80 meters) in depth, 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter.
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3 Responses to “Huge Hole in Quito, Ecuador”
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The “huge hole in the ground” is known to every high school dropout reader of USA Today as a sinkhole. Third-world countries and the US are all smart enough to build highways and homes over them. Nothing weird about them, happens all the time in Florida.
You used Florida and Nothing Weird in the same sentence.
Not all are caused by ancient underground chambers or shallow caves, as is usually the case in Florida, which is interwoven with natural underground water ways.
Many are caused by leaky piping that start slowly eating away the surrounding soil, then as they grow underground, the process gets more rapid. Eventually the breach and damage is so bad that the soil above can no longer support itself and the whole thing collapses and usually disappears with the torrent quite quickly.
Contrary to the other commenter, they happen quite often world-wide.
With the exception of Florida (and maybe Texas), where the ground is like Swiss cheese, predicting where a sink hole is going to appear is not usually possible. Obviously, building over a shallow ancient cavern is dumb, but predicting when and where a water or sewer pipe is going to burst or even perhaps there is an unknown subterranean cave is nearly impossible. Especially one down very very deep.
To infer it was the people’s fault for many of these is irresponsible and stupid. The only one not “smart enough” here is the snob too ignorant to understand them.