Wednesday, June 02, 2010

L'Image de Jour




This photo posted to the Guatemalan Government's Flickr feed shows a spontaneous sinkhole ("hundimiento") 20 meters deep and 15 wide that appeared today in Zone 2 of Guatemala City, after overwhelming saturation of rains from tropical storm Agatha. Local press reports that it swallowed an entire 3-story building. Not Photoshop, sadly: these happen from time to time during major storms in part because of unstable geology, and in part, bad urban engineering—read more about it in the comments. A break in the over-stressed sewage pipes after the storm was the cause for this one. There are rumors of other sinkholes now forming nearby.
(Via boingboing please check out their post if you want to help)

2 comments:

Amethyst Anne said...

I saw this the other day and wanted to believe it was indeed Photoshopped. It is utterly amazing and horrendous at the same time.

Danica-Dragonfly said...

Holy shit!!

That is awful and strangely awesome (in a not considering the terrible loss of life kinda way).

Wow.