It so happened that periodically our planet fails. With luck, holes of different sizes and degrees of bottomlessness are formed in deserted seas, jungles, taiga and tundra, but it also happens that entire cities are under the threat of going underground. In some cases, nature itself is responsible for such tricks, simply putting a person before a fact, but more and more often the blame for such incidents remains with people. Onliner.by selected the top of the most beautiful and terrible, large and deep failures, places where the center of the Earth is getting a little closer.
1. Dongguan, China
It is in China that failures in the ground are formed especially often. Natural disasters in this vast country are combined with extremely intensive construction, which is often carried out in flagrant violation of all established norms and rules. Construction last summer new station underground railway in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan ended with the fact that almost the whole street went underground.
The funnel formed in several stages. First, into the first hole with an area of 80 square meters a minibus fell, and a day later, in a hole that turned out to be four times larger, the minibus was followed by the construction of an almost erected metro station and part of a city street. At the same time, one person died, several neighboring buildings were seriously damaged, and the process of the formation of the failure was caught on video.
2. Meridian, Mississippi, USA.
Diners who wished to dine at IHOP's fast food pancake shop in the heart of Mississippi town of Meridian were definitely not prepared for the surprise nature had in store for them. On November 9, 2015 at 7:15 pm, a giant trench 180 meters long and 15 meters wide suddenly appeared in the restaurant parking lot. A dozen cars of the institution's customers immediately fell into it.
Most likely, the cause of the incident was the prolonged rains that had been going on in Meridian for two weeks by that time. Local media reported that a storm sewer ran right under the parking lot, apparently unable to withstand the pressure of the incoming water. According to another version, the failure could have occurred due to construction work carried out on this site. The IHOP restaurant had been operating for only a week at the time of the emergency, and the construction of a hotel continued nearby. Fortunately, the cars were the only ones affected during this incident.
3. Batagay, Yakutia, Russia.
Scientists first discovered the Batagai fault in the mid-1960s. At that time it was a relatively small ravine, but over the past five decades it has grown to a cyclopean size of a kilometer long, 800 meters wide and up to 100 meters deep. The failure, resembling an overgrown tadpole, is located in a sparsely populated area, near the village of Batagay, where the forces of prisoner camps even before the Great Patriotic War tin mining began. The emergence of this curious object is connected with this circumstance.
For the needs of the created mine, a forest was cut down in the vicinity of Batagay. Subsequently, active thawing of permafrost took place in this area, as a result of which the top layer of soil fell into the formed voids. From the point of view of the ecology of the region, the ongoing process is still negative, but what happened is satisfied with the rare tourists here, and especially scientists, who have received a convenient testing ground for studying permafrost. According to the Yakut tradition, the remains of a mammoth and ancient plants, whose age reaches 200 thousand years, have already been discovered here.
4. Guatemala, Guatemala.
On February 23, 2007, in the capital of Guatemala, the city of Guatemala, nothing foreshadowed trouble, until an almost perfectly round hole with sheer walls a hundred meters deep appeared right in the middle of a densely populated residential area. In this case, there were no casualties: as a result of this tragedy, five people died at once. Worst of all, these dead were not the last.
Just three years later, in May 2010, another similar failure formed in Guatemala (20 meters wide, 90 meters deep), completely destroying a three-story factory building. As a result of this incident, 15 people have already died. Both tragedies were caused by a combination of factors: leaking sewers and heavy rains that triggered the flood simply washed away the volcanic and limestone rocks that the city stands on.
\
5. Ein Gedi, Israel.
If in Guatemala the case was limited to only two failures, then in the Israeli oasis of Ein Gedi, located on the coast of the Dead Sea, they literally count in the thousands. The reason for their formation was the constant, ongoing decrease in the level of the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet. At the same time, due to the ever-increasing analysis of water from the Jordan River that feeds it, the water level in the sea is falling at a rate of about a meter per year. Sea-salinated rock begins to be actively eroded by fresh groundwater, which, in turn, leads to the formation of numerous and extensive voids, the obligatory precursors of sinkholes. It is extremely difficult to predict their appearance, which seriously jeopardizes the tourism potential of the region.
6. Tianken Xiaozhai, China.
This is the deepest natural failure of the Earth. An underground river flowing in the Difen Cave in the Chinese municipality of Chongqing has eroded the limestone that forms the local mountains over time. The result was logical: the resulting karst funnel is 662 meters deep and more than half a kilometer wide.
Speleologists discovered it relatively recently, in 1994, after which the hole was nicknamed "Sky Pit". In addition to tourists, the pit was chosen by numerous plants and animals, including a rare clouded leopard.
7. Solikamsk and Berezniki, Russia.
For thirty years, starting from 1986, six large sinkholes formed at once on the territory and in the immediate vicinity of the Ural cities of Solikamsk and Berezniki. Since the 1930s, potash salts have been actively mined here, as a result of which settlements were surrounded by massive mine workings. Moreover, the cities that grew over time eventually occupied the territory above them, and only a relatively thin, 250-350-meter jumper separated them from the vast underground voids.
Salt rock underground continues to be dissolved by groundwater. This process deforms the cofferdams left in the workings, which ultimately leads to destabilization of their structure, flooding of mines, formation of cracks, man-made earthquakes. The sinkholes in Berezniki and Solikamsk continue to increase, which has already led to the resettlement of entire urban areas on the surface and the closure of a number of enterprises.
8. Sarisarinyama, Venezuela
Tepui are specific mesas in Venezuela, the remains of an ancient plateau, isolated from the rest of the world located at their foot. On their flat tops, there is a special world with endemic species of plants and animals that have developed along their path for thousands of years. In addition to this circumstance, tepui are also curious with numerous sinkholes, the largest of which are located on Mount Sasarinyama in the Venezuelan state of Bolivar.
They were formed during the collapse of the vaults of the tunnels of underground rivers, literally penetrating the mountain. The largest of the four failures on Sarisarinyama are Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel, located 700 meters from each other, going deep into the tepui by 300-350 meters. Their bottom has its own life, including even large trees, and this life was isolated both from the top of the plateau and from big earth- a unique microcosm in the microcosm, a thing in itself, discovered only in the 1960s.
9. Darvaza, Turkmenistan.
This crater in the Turkmen desert of the Karakum has a telling nickname - "The Gates of Hell". From the outside, he really looks ominous. In the early 1970s, Soviet geologists, who were looking for gas near the village of Darvaza, first discovered an underground cavity instead, where all their equipment fell. However, in addition to the cave, there was still gas, which began to actively seep into the environment.
Wanting to save people and their livestock from possible poisoning by the products of these earthly secretions, geologists set fire to the gas, hoping that it would quickly burn out. The scale of the deposit exceeded their expectations. The Darvaza crater is still burning, becoming a tasty object for extreme tourists.
10. Great blue hole, Belize.
This is far from the largest or deepest sinkhole on the surface of the Earth, but it is definitely the most beautiful. The usual karst funnel, formed after the collapse of the arches of limestone caves, was flooded by the Caribbean Sea. The result of the work of nature could not but please people.
Surrounded by a coral reef and azure shallow water, the Great Blue Hole, 120 meters deep, was explored by the expedition of the outstanding traveler Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who opened this formation to the general public. Despite its remoteness from the coast and a certain danger, especially during high tides that cause unpredictable whirlpools, now thousands of divers come to this sea failure to go down to its bottom, see the stalactites growing there with their own eyes, and enjoy the tropical inhabitants of this amazing place along the way. .
Sinks in the ground are formed for various reasons, but they are united by the fact that giant pits are very difficult to eliminate, and the damage caused by them costs significant amounts. Today we bring to your attention a selection of photographs of giant sinkholes taken in various parts of the world.
1. A giant sinkhole, which resulted in several houses underground, in Guatemala City, the photo was taken on February 23, 2007. At least three people are missing, according to official information.
Cars lie in a sinkhole, caused when part of a highway collapsed into an underground cavern in the southern Italian city of Gallipoli, on March 30, 2007. Luckily, no one was injured in the incident, local police said.
People look at the collapsed section of the Shunwai Highway in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China on April 25, 2007. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
4. View of the crater, the appearance of which was caused by a meteorite fall in the southern part of the Peruvian city of Carangas, near the border with Bolivia, the photo was taken September 16, 2007. According to local media, farmers living near the meteorite site complained about headache and nausea, which led officials to send medical teams to the area. The photo was taken on September 16, 2007.
5. Members of the film crew and TV journalists stand near the hole in the Paseo Nuevo in San Sebastian, the photo was taken on March 12, 2008. A hole in the ground was created by the storm, which also sank numerous boats and caused significant damage in the Bay of Biscay area.
6. A sinkhole caused by recent rains in Guatemala, photographed May 30, 2010. As a result of Tropical Storm Agatha in Central America there were heavy rains, killing at least 17 people in the region, and a threat of landslides in three areas. At least one three-story house was found in the sinkhole, which was formed due to the rains that covered the region as a result of tropical storm Agatha.
7. Giant sinkhole, formed as a result of showers caused by the impact of tropical storm Agatha, in Guatemala, the photo was taken on May 31, 2010. More than 94,000 people were evacuated, as a result of a squall and a downpour, many houses were buried under a layer of mud and silt, and in addition, a road bridge near the city of Guatemala was completely destroyed and failures appeared on roads in the capital.
8. A giant sinkhole caused by torrential rains from Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala City on June 1, 2010. Destroyed roads and road bridges further complicated rescue efforts in the region following a squall and storm that killed at least 175 people.
9. Locals look at the giant sinkhole next to the building elementary school Qingquan in Dachegnqiao Ningxiang City, Hunan Province, on June 15, 2010. The giant hole, 150 meters (492 feet) wide and 50 meters (164 feet) deep, has been growing ever since it appeared in January. More than 20 houses were destroyed due to the appearance of this failure. The cause of the hole remains unclear, according to local media.
10. General view of the dips in the city center on June 16, 2010 after flooding in the city of Les Arcs sur Argens, in southeastern France, the day after unusually heavy rains that hit the region and caused a sharp increase in the water level in the Le Real River. As a result of the flooding caused by heavy rains, 19 people died and 7 people are considered dead. The city is located on the Mediterranean coast of France. Over 350 mm (14 inches) of rain fell here within a few hours.
11. Hollows in the ground, formed as a result of the impact of an American bomb in the village of Khosrov Sofla in the Arghandab valley, north of Kandahar, this photo was taken on April 11, 2011. After it was discovered that the village had been used as a Taliban base where improvised explosives were being manufactured, civilian population was evacuated and US warplanes destroyed most of the buildings in the village of Khosrow Sofla on October 6, 2010.
12. . A crater that the Libyan government claims was caused by coalition airstrikes, in a square in Bab al-Aziziyah in Tripoli, pictured on May 12, 2011. Libyan officials who showed the crater to reporters said three people were killed and 25 wounded.
13. A truck that collapsed into a sinkhole after part of a bridge structure collapsed into a river in Changchun City, Jilin Province, on May 29, 2011. Two passengers in the truck were injured.
14. Workers carry out repairs near a sinkhole after part of a bridge collapsed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, July 15, 2011. The failure reaches 20 meters in length and one meter in width, the Qiantang Bridge in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou was blocked, at least one driver was injured. A truck carrying a load of steel plates fell off the bridge, but its driver managed to jump out, Xinhua news agency reported.
15. A failure that appeared on the road after flooding in the city of Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the photo was taken on August 25, 2000. Helicopters evacuated people from flooded areas in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, bringing the total death toll to 93.
16. Rescuers get the bus using a crane from a failure on the streets of Lisbon, the photo was taken November 25, 2003. The bus was parked on a Lisbon street when the ground began to cave in. There were no reports of casualties.
17. Failure on the Shouyang segment expressway, which links the provincial capitals of Hebei and Shanxi in northern China, has caused congestion in this photo taken on March 28, 2006. A 100-meter crater, 10 meters wide and 10 meters deep, appeared on the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan highway. No one was hurt, and the cause of the failure was not clarified.
18. Palestinians look at the destroyed tunnel after the Israeli air strike on the border of Gaza and Egypt in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the photo was taken December 31, 2008.
19. Bird's eye view of the ruins of a residential building and a destroyed road in the village of Nachterstedt, photo taken on July 18, 2009. Three residents have gone missing in the eastern German village of Nachterstedt after their lakeside home and another building suddenly collapsed into the water. A 350-meter section of the coast collapsed into a lake, 170 kilometers southwest of Berlin.
20. Police officers inspect a collapsed section of a highway in Hefei, Anhui Province, on August 8, 2009. Taxi and several motorcycles fell into the sinkhole, according to local media.
21. Jordanian Bedouins with their livestock next to a sinkhole that appeared on the southern shore of the Dead Sea on January 12, 2010, causing numerous problems for residents. The Dead Sea is slowly but surely shallowing, and could disappear completely within 50 years if no action is taken. The water level is falling by one meter (three feet) per year. According to environmentalists, failures appear precisely as a result of a decrease in water levels.
23. Soldier from the first platoon american army walks past a crater left by an improvised explosive device in the village of Khaleqdad Khan in Zabul province, Afghanistan, on May 26, 2012.
24. Workers carry out repairs in an area on a road in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on May 27, 2012. The cause of the collapse, about 6 meters (20 feet) deep, 15 meters (49 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) wide, is under investigation. According to data provided by local media mass media, no casualties.
27. A rescue team works near a collapsed section of Highway 549 near Lake Landvetter outside Gothenburg on December 11, 2006. Thunderstorms have passed in the western part of Sweden.
28. Failure on the highway 15 in San Diego, which arose on February 24. It was formed as a result of the failure of drainage pipes that burst due to heavy rains. A sinkhole formed about eight hundred feet long ago, forty feet wide and seventy feet deep.
29. Local residents walk past a car that fell into a hole in the road. The sinkhole was caused by torrential rains in the northeastern Spanish city of Castelldefels on October 9, 2002. Heavy rains hit the region, causing flooding, damage and traffic problems, but no one was hurt.
30. Rescuers try to pull out a car that fell into a flooded hole on Borges de Medeiros Avenue in Rio de Janeiro, this photo was taken on April 30, 2004. The driver, who did not want to identify himself, left open door on the passenger side, and could only watch as the car plunged into the flooded sinkhole. The failure was formed as a result of a rupture of water pipes. The width of the failure was two and a half meters. famous mountain Corcovado in Rio is visible in the background in this photo.
31. The failure, formed after the earthquake in India.
32. Rescuers to Los Angeles utility workers look at a sinkhole caused by heavy rains on Tujunga Avenue in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles, this photo was taken on February 19, 2005.
Nature often brings surprises that enchant and frighten at the same time, such as a thunderstorm or a storm. We will talk about another similar phenomenon - huge sinkholes that sometimes appear out of the blue in a matter of minutes.
The Sky Pit is a karst sinkhole in China, located in the Chongqing region. It is a double sinkhole that measures 662 meters deep, 626 meters long and 537 meters wide; its upper “bowl” goes 320 meters deep, and the lower one another 342 meters. Such a huge depression, of course, did not appear overnight, but was formed gradually over 128 thousand years. It is so big that it is often visited by extreme people who want to get an adrenaline rush by jumping down from a huge height with a parachute or on a rope.
Funnel in the city of Berezniki, Russia
This failure, about two hundred meters deep, has a length of 80 meters and a width of 40. It appeared in 1986 as a result of an accident, due to which the potash mine in the area was flooded and the soil slid. As the depression continues to grow, experts believe it could destroy railway which is connected to a potash mine. Now they are looking for ways to eliminate this problem, since about 10 percent of the world's potassium production is mined in Berezniki.
Dead Sea sinkholes, Israel
In the vicinity of the city of Ein Gedi, standing on the shores of the Dead Sea, there are several thousand karst depressions. At last count, there are about 3,000 open sinkholes along the coast, plus experts believe there are about the same number of sinkholes yet to be discovered. All of them were formed due to chronic lack of water in an area where the population is growing rapidly. There are also many tourists, who use even more water and create even more sinkholes. Which in turn attract more tourists. In addition, the situation is aggravated by the presence of several chemical plants in the area.
The Qattara Depression in Egypt is the largest of its kind. This waterless depression stretches for 80 kilometers in length and 120 in width. The failure was formed naturally due to the winds that dispelled the sands and formed a depression. The depression is so huge that the Egyptian authorities are looking for ways to use it to generate electricity. As soon as they design a channel for water from the Mediterranean to flow into a giant well, shield gates will be installed to help generate electricity.
Devil's Hollow is located in Edward County, Texas. Its dimensions are 12 by 18 meters, and the depth is 122 meters. The well is made entirely of limestone and is home to the Mexican tailed bat. Observers claim that more than three million bats live in this place.
Depression in Guatemala City, Guatemala
In the capital of Guatemala, in fact, not one, but two giant "wells". The first was formed in 2007 due to a collapsed sewer under a city street, killing two people and leading to the evacuation of thousands of residents. It is an almost perfect circle and has solid depth. Three years later, another sinkhole 60 meters deep and 18 meters wide “ate” a three-story building in the city. Although the depression developed gradually, continuous rain accelerated the process. Luckily no one died this time.
The Bimma well formed naturally in the city of Dibab in Oman and filled with groundwater. The water in this well is blue and clear, which is why the locals and authorities decided to equip it and turn it into a wonderful place for swimming, which attracts both local and foreign tourists.
In the mountains of Venezuela, which are called "tepui", there are four incredible wells. Two of the four, namely Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel are simply huge - 352 meters wide and 314 meters deep. These two wells isolated the forest ecosystems covering the bottom. Another depression is called the "Rain Abyss" and is over a kilometer long. It is used as a platform for scientific research scientists who study the process of erosion in tepui.
The Bahamas are considered a beach paradise due to their wonderful waters complemented by generous sunlight And big amount sand. And the Mecca area is also popular among scuba divers, because there is the famous failure of the Blue Hole. It extends to a depth of 203 meters, which is why it attracts diving enthusiasts. It was here that a man named William Trumbridge set the record for free diving to a depth of 92 meters. Dean's Hole is also probably one of the most picturesque depressions on Earth.
The Great Blue Hole is an underwater well off the coast of Belize. The bowl-shaped sinkhole is 300 meters in diameter and 124 meters deep. It is located in the middle of the Belize Barrier Reef. The Blue Hole has an unusual feature - strange ancient stalactites that cover the surface of the Barrier Reef, which are already on the UN list of study and conservation.
Sinks in the ground are formed for various reasons, but they are united by the fact that giant pits are very difficult to eliminate, and the damage caused by them costs significant amounts. Today we bring to your attention a selection of photographs of giant sinkholes taken in various parts of the world.
1. A giant sinkhole, which resulted in several houses underground, in Guatemala City, the photo was taken on February 23, 2007. At least three people are missing, according to official information.
Cars lie in a sinkhole, caused when part of a highway collapsed into an underground cavern in the southern Italian city of Gallipoli, on March 30, 2007. Luckily, no one was injured in the incident, local police said.
People look at the collapsed section of the Shunwai Highway in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China on April 25, 2007. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
4. View of the crater, the appearance of which was caused by a meteorite fall in the southern part of the Peruvian city of Carangas, near the border with Bolivia, the photo was taken September 16, 2007. According to local media, farmers living near the meteorite site complained of headaches and nausea, which led officials to send medical teams to the area. The photo was taken on September 16, 2007.
5. Members of the film crew and TV journalists stand near the hole in the Paseo Nuevo in San Sebastian, the photo was taken on March 12, 2008. A hole in the ground was created by the storm, which also sank numerous boats and caused significant damage in the Bay of Biscay area.
6. A sinkhole caused by recent rains in Guatemala, photographed May 30, 2010. Tropical Storm Agatha sent heavy rainfall to Central America, killing at least 17 people in the region and threatening landslides in three areas. At least one three-story house was found in the sinkhole, which was formed due to the rains that covered the region as a result of tropical storm Agatha.
7. Giant sinkhole, formed as a result of showers caused by the impact of tropical storm Agatha, in Guatemala, the photo was taken on May 31, 2010. More than 94,000 people were evacuated, as a result of a squall and a downpour, many houses were buried under a layer of mud and silt, and in addition, a road bridge near the city of Guatemala was completely destroyed and failures appeared on roads in the capital.
8. A giant sinkhole caused by torrential rains from Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala City on June 1, 2010. Destroyed roads and road bridges further complicated rescue efforts in the region following a squall and storm that killed at least 175 people.
9. Locals look at a giant sinkhole near the Qingquan Primary School in Dachegnqiao Ningxiang City, Hunan Province, on June 15, 2010. The giant hole, 150 meters (492 feet) wide and 50 meters (164 feet) deep, has been growing ever since it appeared in January. More than 20 houses were destroyed due to the appearance of this failure. The cause of the hole remains unclear, according to local media.
10. General view of the dips in the city center on June 16, 2010 after flooding in the city of Les Arcs sur Argens, in southeastern France, the day after unusually heavy rains that hit the region and caused a sharp increase in the water level in the Le Real River. As a result of the flooding caused by heavy rains, 19 people died and 7 people are considered dead. The city is located on the Mediterranean coast of France. Over 350 mm (14 inches) of rain fell here within a few hours.
11. Hollows in the ground, formed as a result of the impact of an American bomb in the village of Khosrov Sofla in the Arghandab valley, north of Kandahar, this photo was taken on April 11, 2011. After it was discovered that the village had been used as a Taliban base for the production of improvised explosive materials, the civilian population was evacuated and US military aircraft destroyed most of the buildings in the village of Khosrow Sofla on October 6, 2010.
12. . A crater that the Libyan government claims was caused by coalition airstrikes, in a square in Bab al-Aziziyah in Tripoli, pictured on May 12, 2011. Libyan officials who showed the crater to reporters said three people were killed and 25 wounded.
13. A truck that collapsed into a sinkhole after part of a bridge structure collapsed into a river in Changchun City, Jilin Province, on May 29, 2011. Two passengers in the truck were injured.
14. Workers carry out repairs near a sinkhole after part of a bridge collapsed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, July 15, 2011. The failure reaches 20 meters in length and one meter in width, the Qiantang Bridge in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou was blocked, at least one driver was injured. A truck carrying a load of steel plates fell off the bridge, but its driver managed to jump out, Xinhua news agency reported.
15. A failure that appeared on the road after flooding in the city of Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the photo was taken on August 25, 2000. Helicopters evacuated people from flooded areas in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, bringing the total death toll to 93.
16. Rescuers get the bus using a crane from a failure on the streets of Lisbon, the photo was taken November 25, 2003. The bus was parked on a Lisbon street when the ground began to cave in. There were no reports of casualties.
17. A failure on the Shouyang segment of the expressway that links the provincial capitals of Hebei and Shanxi in northern China caused traffic congestion, this photo was taken on March 28, 2006. A 100-meter crater, 10 meters wide and 10 meters deep, appeared on the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan highway. No one was hurt, and the cause of the failure was not clarified.
18. Palestinians look at the destroyed tunnel after the Israeli air strike on the border of Gaza and Egypt in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the photo was taken December 31, 2008.
19. Bird's eye view of the ruins of a residential building and a destroyed road in the village of Nachterstedt, photo taken on July 18, 2009. Three residents have gone missing in the eastern German village of Nachterstedt after their lakeside home and another building suddenly collapsed into the water. A 350-meter section of the coast collapsed into a lake, 170 kilometers southwest of Berlin.
20. Police officers inspect a collapsed section of a highway in Hefei, Anhui Province, on August 8, 2009. Taxi and several motorcycles fell into the sinkhole, according to local media.
21. Jordanian Bedouins with their livestock next to a sinkhole that appeared on the southern shore of the Dead Sea on January 12, 2010, causing numerous problems for residents. The Dead Sea is slowly but surely shallowing, and could disappear completely within 50 years if no action is taken. The water level is falling by one meter (three feet) per year. According to environmentalists, failures appear precisely as a result of a decrease in water levels.
23. A soldier from the first platoon of the US army walks past a crater left by an improvised explosive device explosion in the village of Khaleqdad Khan in Zabul province in Afghanistan, this photo was taken on May 26, 2012.
24. Workers carry out repairs in an area on a road in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on May 27, 2012. The cause of the collapse, about 6 meters (20 feet) deep, 15 meters (49 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) wide, is under investigation. According to information provided by local media, there were no casualties.
27. A rescue team works near a collapsed section of Highway 549 near Lake Landvetter outside Gothenburg on December 11, 2006. Thunderstorms have passed in the western part of Sweden.
28. Failure on the highway 15 in San Diego, which arose on February 24. It was formed as a result of the failure of drainage pipes that burst due to heavy rains. A sinkhole formed about eight hundred feet long ago, forty feet wide and seventy feet deep.
29. Local residents walk past a car that fell into a hole in the road. The sinkhole was caused by torrential rains in the northeastern Spanish city of Castelldefels on October 9, 2002. Heavy rains hit the region, causing flooding, damage and traffic problems, but no one was hurt.
30. Rescuers try to pull out a car that fell into a flooded hole on Borges de Medeiros Avenue in Rio de Janeiro, this photo was taken on April 30, 2004. The driver, who did not want to identify himself, left the passenger side door open and could only watch as the car plunged into the flooded sinkhole. The failure was formed as a result of a rupture of water pipes. The width of the failure was two and a half meters. Rio's iconic Corcovado mountain is visible in the background in this photo.
31. The failure, formed after the earthquake in India.
32. Rescuers to Los Angeles utility workers look at a sinkhole caused by heavy rains on Tujunga Avenue in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles, this photo was taken on February 19, 2005.
33. A car is lifted out of a collapsed road surface in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, on September 7, 2008. The road collapsed on Sunday afternoon and cars fell into a hole that was 5 meters (16.4 feet) deep and 15 meters (49.2 feet) in diameter, local media reported.
34. View of the destroyed section of the West Dawang Road in Beijing, photo taken on November 29, 2007. The failure is located near one of the busiest intersections in the central business district.
35. A utility worker inspects a sinkhole 25 meters (82 feet) deep after a landslide in Bellevue Hill, one of Sydney's most expensive suburbs, on May 29, 2009. No one was injured during the landslide, which turned cars parked on the street underground.
36. A woman walks along the destroyed highway TF326 after part of it collapsed after a storm, near the village of Palo Blanco in the Canary Islands, the Spanish island of Tenerife, this photo was taken on November 23, 2009. Torrential rain hit the northern part of Tenerife, blocking some roads, damaging others and flooding a huge number of homes and businesses.
37. View of a giant sinkhole that appeared early in the morning in the central German city of Schmalkalden, photo taken November 1, 2010. A huge crater, measuring 30 by 40 meters, appeared in the center of a residential area, according to local police.
38. People inspect the partially destroyed road, and the dog falls into the pit. Photo taken in the poor area of Carretera Vieja in Caracas on November 26, 2010. Three children died in a landslide in the San Agustin slum in the Venezuelan capital after heavy rains continued in the region for several days, according to information provided by local media and emergency officials.
39. Bird's eye view of the damaged Gran Marical de Ayacucho Highway in the state of Miranda outside of Caracas, photographed December 1, 2010. Thousands of Venezuelans have fled their homes after landslides and floods caused at least 21 deaths.
40. Locals inspect a road that collapsed when flash flooding hit Toowoomba, 105 kilometers (65 miles) west of Brisbane on January 10, 2011. Residents of the third largest city in Australia, Brisbane were forced to evacuate as a result of the flood.
41. Thai man next to the sinkhole, which is believed to have been the result of a bombing in the province of Si Sa Ket near the ancient temple of Preah Vihear, dating back to the eleventh century, on the border between Thailand and Cambodia, this photo was taken February 5, 2011.
To the number amazing phenomena nature can certainly be attributed periodically opening in different places the globe holes.
1. Kimberlite pipe "Mir" (Mir diamond pipe), Yakutia.
The Mir kimberlite pipe is a quarry located in the city of Mirny, Yakutia. The quarry has a depth of 525 m and a diameter of 1.2 km and is one of the largest quarries in the world. Mining of diamondiferous kimberlite ore was stopped in June 2001. Currently, an underground mine of the same name is being built on board the quarry to develop the remaining under-quarry reserves, the extraction of which by open pit is unprofitable.
The world's largest diamond quarry is amazing.
2.Kimberlite pipe "Big hole", South Africa.
Big Hole - a huge inactive diamond mine in the city of Kimberley (South Africa). It is believed that this is the largest quarry developed by people without the use of technology. It is currently the main attraction of the city of Kimberley.
Between 1866 and 1914, about 50,000 miners dug the shaft with picks and shovels, producing 2,722 tons of diamonds (14.5 million carats) in the process. During the development of the quarry, 22.5 million tons of soil were extracted. It was here that such famous diamonds as "De Beers" (428.5 carats), bluish-white "Porter Rhodes" (150 carats), orange-yellow " Tiffany" (128.5 carats). At present, this diamond deposit has been exhausted. The area of the "Big Hole" is 17 hectares. Its diameter is 1.6 km. The hole was dug to a depth of 240 meters, but then was filled with waste rock to a depth of 215 meters, currently the bottom of the hole is filled with water, its depth is 40 meters.
At the site of the mine earlier (about 70 - 130 million years ago) there was a volcano mouth. Almost a hundred years ago - in 1914, the development in the "Big Hole" was stopped, but the gaping mouth of the pipe remains to this day and now serves only as a bait for tourists, acting as a museum. And…begins to create problems. In particular, there was a serious danger of collapse not only of its edges, but also of the roads laid in its immediate vicinity. The South African road authorities have long banned the passage of heavy goods vehicles in these places, and now they strongly recommend that all other drivers avoid driving along Bultfontein Road in the Big Hole area. The authorities are going to completely block the dangerous section of the road. And the largest diamond company in the world, De Beers, which has owned this mine since 1888, did not find anything better than to get rid of it by putting it up for sale.
3. Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah.
The largest active quarry in the world - the development of copper began in 1863 and is still going on. About a kilometer deep and three and a half kilometers wide.
It is the world's largest anthropogenic formation (dug out by man). It is an open pit mine.
As of 2008, it measures 0.75 miles (1.2 km) deep, 2.5 miles (4 km) wide and covers an area of 1,900 acres (7.7 sq km).
The ore was first discovered in 1850, and quarrying began in 1863, which continues to this day.
Currently, the quarry employs 1,400 people who extract 450,000 tons (408 thousand tons) of rock daily. The ore is loaded onto 64 large dump trucks capable of hauling 231 tons of ore, these trucks cost about US$3 million each.
4. Quarry "Dyavik" (Diavik), Canada. Diamonds are mined.
The Canadian quarry "Diavik" is perhaps one of the youngest (by development) diamond kimberlite pipes. It was first explored only in 1992, the infrastructure was created by 2001, and diamond mining began in January 2003. Presumably, the mine will last from 16 to 22 years.
The place of its exit to the surface of the earth is unique in itself. Firstly, this is not one, but three pipes at once, formed on the island of Las de Gras, about 220 km south of the Arctic Circle, off the coast of Canada. Because the hole is huge and the island is in the middle Pacific Ocean small, only 20 km²
and in a short time the Diavik diamond mine became one of the most important components of the Canadian economy. Up to 8 million carats (1600 kg) of diamonds are mined from this deposit annually. An airfield has been built on one of its neighboring islands, capable of receiving even huge Boeings. In June 2007, a consortium of seven mining companies announced their intention to sponsor environmental studies and begin construction on Canada's North Shore of a major port to receive cargo ships up to 25,000 tons, as well as a 211 km access road that would connect the port to the consortium's plants. . And this means that the hole in the ocean will grow and deepen.
5. Great Blue Hole, Belize.
The world-famous Great Blue Hole (“Great Blue Hole”) is the main attraction of the picturesque, ecologically perfectly clean Belize (formerly British Honduras) - a state in Central America, on the Yucatan Peninsula. No, this time it's not a kimberlite pipe. Not diamonds are “mined” from it, but tourists - diving enthusiasts from all over the world, thanks to which it feeds the country no worse than a diamond pipe. Probably, it would be better to call it not the “Blue Hole”, but the “Blue Dream”, since this can only be seen in dreams or in a dream. This is a true masterpiece, a miracle of nature - a perfectly round, twilight blue spot in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by the lace front of the Lighthouse Reef atol.
View from space!
Width 400 meters, depth 145 - 160 meters.
As if floating above the abyss ...
6. Drainage hole in the reservoir of the Monticello dam.
A large man-made hole is located in Northern California, USA. But it's not just a hole. The drain hole in the reservoir of the Monticello Dam is the largest spillway in the world! It was built about 55 years ago. This funnel-shaped exit is simply indispensable here. It allows you to quickly dump excess water from the tank when its level exceeds the allowable rate. A kind of safety valve.
Visually, the funnel looks like a giant concrete pipe. It is capable of passing through itself in a second as much as 1370 cubic meters. m of water! The depth of such a hole is about 21 m. From top to bottom, it has the shape of a cone, the diameter of which at the top reaches almost 22 m, and narrows down to 9 m and exits from the other side of the dam, removing excess water when the reservoir overflows. The distance from the pipe to the exit point, which is located slightly to the south, is approximately 700 feet (about 200 m).
7. Karst failure in Guatemala.
