Topic: Beach sinkhole (caught on video)

[pspyrock]

*Lock or ignore kung na-post na.
Nature at work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfitbqFTREU

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfitbqFTREU[/youtube]


LIQUEFACTION similar to that experienced during the Christchurch earthquake is responsible for the dramatic erosion of a beach north of Tin Can Bay, according to a disaster management scientist.

Campers and locals watched on in shock at Inskip Point yesterday as a 100m-wide section of the popular beach and trees were swallowed suddenly by the sea.

By this morning, Queensland Parks and Wildlife regional manager Ross Belcher reported the affected area had grown to about 200m-wide, while traffic management tape was being used to prevent motorist travelling too close to the unstable beach front.

Canberra-based landslide and disaster risk management scientist Dr Marion Leiba said while the dramatic sinkhole-like conditions were likely caused by an eddy or loop current creating turbulence in the water and destabilising sand.

"Sand is permeable which means the water gets in to it and when you get enough water pressure, it holds the grains apart and it turns in to quicksand,"

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"It loses cohesion and it just sort of collapses down.

"It's just sort of sucked down in to the bottom of the water."

Dr Leiba said the liquefaction phenomenon at Inskip Point was similar to that experienced during the Christchurch earthquakes earlier this year.

"In that case, it was a permeable layer underneath the houses where the mud and the silt has sort of liquefied and bubbled," she said.

"It's a similar sort of phenomenon where you've got something that was solid but you don't have anything much that makes it sit together."

Dr Leiba said the continued growth of the eroded area would depend on the aggressiveness of ocean currents.

QPWS rangers are continuing to monitor the situation.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/sudden-beach-sinkhole-widens/story-fn6ck45n-1226082901693

[pspyrock]

Sinkhole under the bed.

Here's something you never want to hear: "That loud booming sound is coming from inside the house!"

That's what one Inocenta Hernandez from Guatemala City learned after a sudden noise caused her to run outside, thinking there had been an explosion nearby. When she realized the problem was inside her home, she returned to find a gaping, three feet wide, 40 feet deep sinkhole beneath her bed.

Hernandez, 65, was relieved that the damage was only to her house, and hadn't harmed her grandchildren, who had been playing near the bed. This was a little too close to home, but she couldn't have been too surprised that a sinkhole had visited her city.

Guatemala City is prone to spawning giant pits, which are often caused by tropical rain storms. Sinkholes are natural depressions in the earth that can range anywhere from a few feet to hundreds of acres wide, and measure a shallow foot to 100 feet deep.

A massive chasm opened up in Guatemala City back in May 2010; it swallowed up whole buildings and an intersection. No deaths were blamed on the almost perfect cylindrical crater, though.

Meanwhile, a Texas-sized pit opened up in Daisetta, Texas in 2008. The sinkhole stretched 600 feet long and 150 feet wide; it sucked down a tractor, several telephone poles and an assortment of oil field equipment.

Searches certainly opened up on the Web. Lookups on Yahoo! for "what is a sinkhole" and "guatemala sinkhole" and even "daisetta sinkhole" all grew in the last week.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/sinking-feeling-woman-finds-giant-sinkhole-under-her-203620309.html