It so happened that periodically our planet collapses. If you're lucky, holes of different sizes and degrees of bottomlessness are formed in deserted seas, jungles, taiga and tundra, but it also happens that whole cities are under the threat of going underground. In some cases, nature itself is responsible for such tricks, simply confronting a person with a fact, but more and more often the blame for such incidents remains with people. Onliner.by has selected the top of the most beautiful and terrible, large and deep gaps, places where the center of the Earth is getting a little closer.

1. Dongguan, China.

It is in China that sinkholes 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. Last summer, construction new station underground railway in the south Chinese city Dongguan ended up with almost an entire street going underground.

The funnel was formed in several stages. First, into the first hole with an area of ​​80 square meters a minibus fell, and a day later, into the sinkhole, which 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. In this case, one person died, several neighboring buildings were seriously damaged, and the process of the formation of the failure itself was captured on video.

2. Meridian, Mississippi, USA.

Visitors who wanted to dine at the IHOP Quick Service Pancake, located in the provincial town of Meridian in the heart of Mississippi, were definitely not prepared for the surprise that nature presented to them. On November 9, 2015 at 7:15 pm, a giant trench 180 meters long and 15 meters wide suddenly appeared in a restaurant parking lot. A dozen cars of clients of the institution 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 collector passed directly under the parking lot, apparently unable to withstand the pressure of the incoming water. According to another version, the failure could have arisen due to the construction work carried out on this site. At the time of the emergency, the IHOP restaurant had only been working for a week, and the construction of the hotel continued nearby. Fortunately, the cars were the only ones injured during this incident.

3. Batagay, Yakutia, Russia.

For the first time, scientists discovered the Batagay fault in the mid-1960s. At that time, it was a relatively small ravine, but over the past five decades it has grown to cyclopean dimensions a kilometer long, 800 meters wide and up to 100 meters deep. The sinkhole, reminiscent of an overgrown tadpole, is located in a sparsely populated area, near the village of Batagay, where the forces of prisoners in the 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 melting took place in this area. permafrost, resulting in upper layer soil and fell into the resulting voids. From the point of view of the ecology of the region, the ongoing process is negative character, but so far the rare tourists here, and especially the scientists, who have received a convenient testing ground for studying the permafrost, are happy with what happened. 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, it was not without casualties: as a result of this tragedy, five people died at once. Worst of all, these victims were not the last.

Just three years later, in May 2010, another similar sinkhole (20 meters wide, 90 meters deep) formed in Guatemala, which completely destroyed 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: the leaking sewers and heavy rains that provoked the flooding simply eroded the volcanic and limestone rocks on which the city stands.

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 Dead sea, they count literally in the thousands. The reason for their formation was the constant, continuing to this day, lowering of 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 parsing of water from the Jordan River that feeds it, the water level in the sea drops at a rate of about a meter per year. The rock salted by the sea begins to be actively eroded by fresh groundwater, which, in turn, leads to the formation of numerous and extensive voids, which are obligatory predecessors of sinkholes. It is extremely difficult to predict their appearance, which poses a serious threat to 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 sinkhole is 662 meters deep and more than half a kilometer wide.

Cavers discovered it relatively recently, in 1994, after which the hole received the nickname "Heavenly Pit". In addition to tourists, the pit was chosen by numerous plants and animals, including the rare clouded leopard.

7. Solikamsk and Berezniki, Russia.

For thirty years, starting from 1986, on the territory and in the immediate vicinity of the Ural cities of Solikamsk and Berezniki, six large dips have formed at once. Since the 1930s, active production of potash salts has been carried out here, as a result of which settlements were surrounded by large-scale mine workings. Moreover, the cities that grew over time eventually occupied the territory above them, and they were separated from the vast underground voids only by a relatively thin, 250-350-meter cofferdam.

Underground salt rock continues to dissolve in groundwater. This process deforms the mine bulkheads left in the workings, which ultimately leads to the destabilization of their structure, flooding of mines, the formation of cracks, and man-made earthquakes. Failures 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, remnants of an ancient plateau, isolated from the rest of the world at their foot. On their flat tops, there is a special world with endemic species of plants and animals that have evolved along their path for millennia. In addition to this circumstance, tepuis are also curious for their numerous karst sinkholes, the largest of which are located on Mount Sarisarinama in the Venezuelan state of Bolivar.

They were formed during the collapse of the vaults of the tunnels of underground rivers, literally piercing the mountain. The largest of the four sinkholes at Sarisarinam are Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel located 700 meters apart, extending 300-350 meters deep into the tepui. At their bottom there is a life of its own, including even large trees, and this life was isolated from both the top of the plateau and from Big Earth- a unique microcosm in a microcosm, a thing in itself, discovered only in the 1960s.

Has the Earth's crust become more unstable? Gigantic funnels are forming all over the planet, writes investmentwatchblog.com. Many of them are so huge and open so suddenly that they actually swallow cars, houses, and even people. So why is this happening? Is the Earth's crust becoming unreliable? Could it be an expansion of the Earth?

Is there something else to blame for this phenomenon? It seems that these stories of a giant new news gap are popping up almost every day now, and scientists, always bewildered, give no explanation. Could human activity be responsible for this?

Yes, the number of sinkholes in the US definitely seems to be on the rise, but we are also seeing huge sinkholes occurring around the world - and very often in countryside... Any pattern that would seem to indicate that human activity is the main factor does not work there. I hope scientists will still be able to figure out everything that causes this phenomenon, because the process resembles an epidemic, and the situation is constantly getting worse.

For example, a giant sinkhole that was 60 feet wide suddenly opened and threatened to swallow the entire resort near Disney World on Sunday ...

The incident was so shocking that it made headlines across the country. The guests of the resort were absolutely stunned when the walls of the building began to crumble and sink into the ground ...

And, without a doubt, Florida seems to be particularly vulnerable to giant sinkholes. At Winter Park, Florida, a massive sinkhole recently opened up unexpectedly and swallowed an entire pool ...

Insurance and geotechnical regulators spent a good deal of time at the site of the big dip Wednesday morning when it opened in the courtyard of the Winter Park home.

The hole, 50 feet wide and 30 feet deep, swallowed the pool when it opened late Monday night. No harm done.

Orange County inspectors declared the two-story building at 2300 Roxbury Drive and the utility shed "unsafe" for use.

But these sinkholes are not only forming in Florida, but elsewhere, where geologists tell us they "should" form.

For example, a giant sinkhole that recently appeared in Kansas is considered such an anomaly that it actually serves to attract tourists ...

The sinkhole in Kansas is in the outback, in the countryside, but similar ones appear right in the center of large cities. A huge sinkhole that recently appeared in the heart of Montreal, Canada, was so large that it was able to swallow an entire excavator ...

And some cities can actually be "eaten alive" by giant sinkholes. For example, more than 40 large craters plague the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ...

And of course we find this phenomenon on the west coast as well. Indeed, one giant failure threatens an entire stationed division near San Francisco, California ...

Personally, I am convinced that something very strange is happening. I cannot explain exactly why this is happening, but it seems obvious that the size and frequency of the dips are increasing.

G reat blue hole
In the photo it looks like it is covered ice blue volcano crater on another planet. This is actually the surface of an ocean funnel.
off the coast of the Central American state of Belize. From the air, the Great Blue Hole looks like a dark blue circle against a turquoise background.
colors of the Caribbean Sea and immediately catches the eye. A funnel formed at the end ice age and is the entrance to the underground
system of long labyrinths and caves.
The deepest point is 124 m, the funnel itself is 318 m wide.In the system of caves you can admire the stalactites and stalagmites that have arisen
even at a time when the caves were not filled with water. The southern face of the Blue Hole is approximately 35-40 m deep. It is a strong magnet and adventure
top class for all divers in the world.

The Tyemsky Gap is a very large depression in a mountain with sheer walls. The height of the stone wall is about 125 meters.
It is a tourist site of technogenic origin. You can look at the lake from above or walk to it through an adit.
The Kyyalykh-Uzen mine appeared in the 20th century. Previously, it was a mountain in which there was a mining mine copper ore, which is why some
it was called the Copper Mountain. The mountain was completely indented by drifts and adits. the Tuim-Tungsten Association was organized, where
they mined mainly copper, lead, gold, tungsten, molybdenum, iron, etc.
At the beginning of the 50s, the village of Tuim was a closed zone, in those years there were about 25 thousand political prisoners who were building a settlement, a thermal power station, railways,
factory, etc.
The mine operated from 1953 to 1974, i.e. 22. In 1974 it was closed for many reasons. At first, the mountain, which was devastated from the inside,
did not seem to pose any danger at all, until the animals began to fall underground. A hole appeared at the top
the diameter of which was 6 meters, and the mountain had to be blown up. After that, a very large landslide formed, which eventually filled
water: this is how the lake appeared. The depth of the lake is about 100 meters, and in some places at the bottom of the sinkhole it reaches about 500 meters.
The lake water has a turquoise color, which is determined by the dissolved copper salts. Today the basin is 700 meters long and 400 meters wide.

Tuimsky failure was opened to the public in 1995 by Yuri Senkevich. Now this place
pilgrimages of numerous tourists and extreme divers.

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D amba Monticello was built in 1953-1957. in Napa County (California)
The dam blocked the Putah River and formed Lake Berryessa, the second largest lake in California.
The water is held back by 249,000 m3 of concrete. The average such arched dam with a height of 93 m. and a length of 312 m., they would not know about it,
if not for the funnel, which sucks in all living and nonliving.

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To the imberley Diamond Mine.
The Kimberley Diamond Mines of South Africa, also known as the Big Hole, are fighting for the name of the largest hole in the world dug by human hands.
From 1866 to 1914 almost every day up to 30 thousand prospectors dug this hole, giving out during this time 2,722 kg. diamonds.
Here were found such famous diamonds as De Beers (428.5 carats), Porter Rhodes (150 carats) and Tiffany (128.5 carats).
The large hole has a surface of 17 hectares, 463 meters wide and goes 240 meters deep.
Now the mines are covered with a 40-meter layer of water. Attempts are being made to register the hole as a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
however, the Jagersfontein mines are deeper in my opinion.

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Berringer Meteorite Crater, Arizona, USA.
The crater appeared about 50 thousand years ago after the fall of a 50-meter meteorite weighing 300 thousand tons and flying at a speed of 45-60 thousand km / h.
The explosion from the fall was three times more powerful than an explosion Tunguska meteorite and was similar in power to the explosion of 1000 atomic bombs similar to the discarded
to Hiroshima. Fragments of meteoric nickel iron have been found in and around the Arizona Crater. The crater itself is a huge
a depression 1200 meters wide and 200 meters deep. The local Indians have a huge number of legends and traditions associated with this sacred place.
Until now, their descendants wear amulets with metal fragments of a meteorite.
Scientists only became aware of the existence of the crater since 1891.

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In Russia, the first diamond was found on July 4, 1829 in the Urals at the Exaltation of the Cross gold mine,
located in the Perm province, 14-year-old serf Pavel Popov found the crystal while washing gold in a concentrate tray.
For a half-carat crystal, Pavel received his freedom. Pavel brought scientists, members of the expedition of the German explorer Alexander Humboldt,
to the place where he found the first diamond. This place is located approximately one kilometer from the village. Fisheries, not far from the old
highway connecting the villages of Promysla and Teplaya Gora Perm Territory.
For 28 years of further searches, only 131 diamonds with a total weight of 60 carats were found.
The search for diamonds in Russia has been going on for almost a century and a half, and only in the mid-1950s the richest primary diamond deposits were discovered in Yakutia.

Diamond quarry in the city of Mirny in Yakutia. This man-made monster, located right within the city, is called simply - Mir.
On June 13, 1955, a geological party with geologists Ekaterina Elagina, Yuri Khabardin, Viktor Avdeenko and several workers opened
diamond pipe, which turned out to be the largest with the richest diamond content. They named it "Mir" and sent it to their superiors
the following telegram:
"We lit a pipe of peace, the tobacco is excellent ..."
The depth of this hole reaches 525 meters, and the diameter is 1200 meters.
Some call the mine "the navel of the earth", and flying over the giant funnel is prohibited, as they are sucked in by force,
two helicopters have already crashed.
For forty-five years, the deposit has been regularly supplying the market with diamonds recognized as the standard of quality and beauty. Architectural bureau "AB Alice"
developed a project for an "eco-city" to be built in the crater. Eco-city 2020 envisages the construction of a giant city,
which can accommodate more than 100 thousand people.
The structure will be divided into three main levels with residential and recreational areas.
One of the features of the project is a glass roof that protects the city, covered with photocells.

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To the well of Chand Baori / Chand Baori.
This well is amazing appearance structure built in the 9th century for mining drinking water.
It has 13 tiers, 3500 steps, and a well depth of 30.5 meters. (100 feet)
It is located in the small town of Abaneri, 95 kilometers from Jaipur, Rajasthan state, this is one of the deepest
step wells in India, and maybe on the planet ...
Step wells (baori) are an invention of the ancient inhabitants of India. These wells go lower and lower in steps,
helping to get to the groundwater to which rainwater was added.

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Bingham Canyon in Utah, USA. The largest operating open pit copper mine,
molybdenum, gold and silver. Located near Salt Lake City. Has the honorary title of the largest man-made excavation site.
Profile development began in 1863 and continues to this day with high productivity. More than 17 million tons of copper were mined,
652 tons of gold and 5386 tons of silver. This quarry, 1200 meters deep and 4000 meters wide, was declared national in 1966.
historical heritage of the United States and has become a tourist pilgrimage site. There is an observation deck here, from which you can observe
at work boiling down below.

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The enote Zacaton, off the northeastern coast of Mexico, is the deepest natural drainage
well in the world. Its bottom is located at a depth of 318 meters below the surface of the earth. This was confirmed by studies carried out
with the help of special guided bathyscaphes, developed for underwater research by NASA.

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Spent in Guatemala.
The sinkhole of the soil with a diameter of 30 meters and a depth of about 60 meters absorbed several buildings and two people in the city of Guatemala.
The tragedy occurred in July 2007 after the passage of tropical cyclone Agata. Two people died in the "mouth of the devil".
Geologists explain the unusual round shape of the hole by the shape of karst underground caves. The soil in this place is rich in limestone,
salts that dissolve easily in water. Such failures are typical for the southern states of the United States and Central America, but this size
and a perfectly round shape overshadowed all the others.

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The center of the world.
Wilkes Crater is a geological formation located under the Antarctic ice sheet, in the Wilkes Land area, with a diameter of about 500 km.
It is believed to be a giant meteorite crater.
In 2006, a group led by Ralph von Frese and Laramie Potts discovered
a massive concentrate with a diameter of about 300 km, around which, according to radar data, there is a large ring structure characteristic of
impact craters. Since the structure is located under the Antarctic ice sheet, direct observations of it are not yet possible.
There is a hypothesis that this event caused the Permian-Triassic extinction about 250 million years ago.

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Interesting and incomprehensible. Dips and holes in the ground.

On October 18, 1984, Brothers Rick and Peter Timm, walking around their farm near Grand Cooley, Washington,
The United States discovered a 3x2 depression and a depth of 3 meters in an area adjacent to a wheat field. Farmers have harvested this field
a month ago and claimed that then this pit did not exist. Moreover, it was completely incomprehensible how, who and why dug it up. Bewilderment
brothers intensified when, more than twenty meters from the pit, they discovered a block of earth, apparently
withdrawn from the failure. How this was done remained unclear, although the hole and a huge, intact clod of soil were tied by an arc
from clumps of earth the size of a fingernail. The impression was that the lump was somehow in a clever way removed from the ground and, carried through the air,
neatly placed at a distance.

Interested in a strange phenomenon, the brothers invited Don Aubertino, the director of a nearby mine, to see it.
Don Aubertino suggested that it was a meteorite trail. However, his friend - geologist Bill Utterbach argued that the ill-fated pit cannot
be a meteorite crater. The pit's vertical walls and flat bottom indicated that it was not formed as a result of the fall of some
heavy object, but due to the removal of land from it. It was also curious that the sod and woven tree roots remained intact.
and along the walls of the pit, and in a displaced coma, which also did not correspond to the meteorite hypothesis.

Probably, a lump weighing about three tons could have been lifted by a whirlwind. But at the same time, it would have collapsed. Plus no destruction
left by the whirlwind were not around. Fellow of the Smithsonian Institution (Research and Education Institute in Washington, USA)
stated that neither he nor his colleagues had encountered such a phenomenon and were unable to explain it.

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Several years ago, the media reported that a strange hole was discovered near Rostov-on-Don. On him at the beginning of winter 2007 under the farm
Kurganny came across local hunters. An inexplicable hole in the ground, more than three meters in diameter, was located next to a country road.
Intrigued hunters looked into the hole - it was dark, threw a stone there and, by sound, determined that its depth was not less than 10 meters.
“The edges of the dip are very clear,” said the hunter Vladimir Kodenko. - And scattered nearby are pieces of sintered, very light matter
black color.
-We have never seen such a thing!
The perplexed hunters marked the hole they had found so that no one would fall into it, and reported it to the village council. Of course, in the village
immediately they started talking about aliens, and someone remembered that about five years ago, somewhere nearby geologists were conducting blasting operations. Anyway
it was, a group of local residents headed by Ivan Ishchenko went to look at the failure. They managed to see that at about a depth of 7 meters
the mysterious pit expands in all directions.
And a few days later it turned out that the failure has an analogue - 100 kilometers from it, in the area of ​​the village of Lugansk, in the spring, a tractor driver
I almost fell into a hole dug right in the middle of the field. He marked it with a mark, and six months later it turned out that the gap he discovered had increased
almost doubled. In shape, both failures were very similar to each other.
The locals naturally put forward a bold hypothesis. In their opinion, these holes were dug and connected with each other by a hundred-kilometer tunnel ...
... aliens.

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To be continued.

Holes that periodically open up in different parts of the globe can certainly be attributed to the number of amazing natural phenomena.

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. The mining of diamondiferous kimberlite ore ceased in June 2001. At present, an underground mine of the same name is being built on board the open pit to develop the remaining sub-pit reserves, the extraction of which open way unprofitable.

The world's largest diamond quarry is amazing.

2.Kimberlite pipe "Big hole", South Africa.

The Big Hole is a huge idle diamond mine in the city of Kimberley, South Africa. It is believed that this is the largest career 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 a mine with picks and shovels, producing 2,722 tons of diamonds (14.5 million carats). 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 "were found. 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 it 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.

There was a volcano mouth on the site of the mine before (about 70 - 130 million years ago). 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 ... starts to create problems. In particular, there was a serious danger of collapse not only of its edges, but also of roads laid in the immediate vicinity. South African road services have long banned the passage of heavy goods vehicles in these places, and now they strongly recommend all other drivers to avoid driving on Bultfontein Road. in the Big Hole area. The authorities are going to completely block the dangerous section of the road. And the world's largest diamond company, De Beers, which owned this mine since 1888, found nothing better than to get rid of it by putting it up for sale.

3. Quarry Kennecott Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah.

Largest operating quarry in the world - Copper mining began in 1863 and is still ongoing. About a kilometer deep and three and a half kilometers wide.

It is the world's largest man-made formation (excavated by a man). It is an open pit mine.

Measures as of 2008: 0.75 mile (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 from 1863 the development of a quarry began, which continues to this day.

Currently, the quarry employs 1,400 people, who daily extract 450,000 tons (408 thousand tons) of rock. The ore is loaded into 64 large dump trucks that are capable of transporting 231 tons of ore each, these trucks cost about US $ 3 million each.

4. Quarry "Diavik", Canada. Diamonds are mined.

The Canadian quarry "Diavik" is perhaps one of the youngest (in terms of 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, it 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. Since the hole is huge and the island is in the middle The Pacific small, only 20 km²

a short term the Diavik diamond mine has become one of the most important components of the Canadian economy. This deposit produces up to 8 million carats (1600 kg) of diamonds per year. An airfield has been built on one of the 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 the northern coast of Canada, a major port to receive cargo ships up to 25,000 tons displacement, as well as a 211 km access road that will connect the port to the consortium's factories. ... This means that the hole in the ocean will grow and deepen.

5. Great Blue Hole, Belize.

The world-famous Great Blue Hole is the main attraction of the picturesque, ecologically clean Belize (formerly British Honduras) - a state in Central America, on the Yucatan Peninsula. No, this time it's not a kimberlite pipe. It is not diamonds that 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 “Blue Hole”, but “Blue Dream”, since this can only be seen in dreams or in a dream. It is a true masterpiece, a miracle of nature - a perfectly round, twilight spot in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by a lace bib at Lighthouse Reef.

View from space!

Width 400 meters, depth 145 - 160 meters.

As if floating over the abyss ...

6. Gutter opening in the reservoir of the Monticello dam.

A large man-made hole is located in Northern California, USA. But this is not just a pit. 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 exit is simply irreplaceable here. It allows you to quickly dump excess water from the tank when its level exceeds the permissible norm. A kind of safety valve.

Visually, the funnel looks like a giant concrete pipe. It is capable of passing through itself as much as 1370 cubic meters per second. 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 downward narrows to 9 m and comes out from the other side of the dam, removing excess water when the reservoir is overflowed. The distance from the pipe to the exit point, which is slightly to the south, is approximately 700 feet (about 200 m).

7. Karst sinkhole in Guatemala.

A giant funnel 150 meters deep and 20 meters in diameter. Caused by groundwater and rainfall. During the formation of the failure, several people died and a dozen houses were destroyed. According to local residents, since about the beginning of February, in the area of ​​the future tragedy, the soil was moving, and a muffled rumble was heard from under the ground.

Dips in the ground are formed for various reasons, but they are united by the fact that giant pits are very difficult to liquidate, and the damage caused by them costs significant amounts. Today we bring to your attention a selection of photographs of giant sinkholes in the ground, taken in various parts of the world.

1. A giant sinkhole, as a result of which several houses were underground, in Guatemala City, photo was taken on February 23, 2007. At least three people are missing, according to official information.

2. Cars lie in a sinkhole caused when a section of a highway collapsed into an underground cave in the southern Italian city of Gallipoli, photo taken March 30, 2007. Fortunately, no one was injured in the night accident, local police said.

3. People look at the collapsed section of Shunwai Highway in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China, on April 25, 2007. Nobody was hurt as a result of the accident.

4. View of a crater caused by a meteorite in the southern Peruvian city of Carangas, near the border with Bolivia, photo taken September 16, 2007. Local media reported that farmers living near the meteorite impact site complained about headache and the nausea that prompted officials to send medical teams to the area. Photo 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, photo taken March 12, 2008. The hole in the ground was formed by the storm, during which numerous boats also sank, and the elements caused significant damage in the Bay of Biscay.

6. A sinkhole caused by recent rains in Guatemala, photo taken on May 30, 2010. Tropical storm Agatha in Central America experienced heavy rains, 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 by the rainstorms that covered the region as a result of tropical storm Agatha.

7. A giant sinkhole caused by rainstorm Agata in Guatemala on May 31, 2010. More than 94,000 people were evacuated, as a result of the squall and 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 road failures appeared in the capital.

8. A giant sinkhole caused by torrential rains from Tropical Storm Agata in Guatemala City, June 1, 2010. Destroyed roads and road bridges have further complicated rescue operations in the region after a squall and storm that killed at least 175 people.

9. Locals look at a giant sinkhole next to the building primary school Qingquan in Dachegnqiao Ningxiang City, Hunan Province, photo taken on June 15, 2010. The giant hole, 150 meters (492 feet) wide and 50 meters (164 feet) deep, has been steadily increasing in size since it first appeared in January. More than 20 houses were destroyed due to the appearance of this failure. The reason for the hole remains unclear, local media reported.

10. General form 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 an unusually heavy rains that hit the region and caused a sharp rise 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 in a few hours.

11. Impact potholes in the ground American bomb in the village of Khosrov Sofla in the Arghandab valley, north of Kandahar, photo taken April 11, 2011. After it was discovered that the village had been used as a Taliban base for making improvised explosives, civilians were evacuated and US military aircraft destroyed most of the buildings in the village of Khosrow Sofla on October 6, 2010.

12. . The crater, which the Libyan government claims was the result of airstrikes by coalition forces, in the square at Bab al-Aziziya in Tripoli, photo taken on May 12, 2011. Libyan officials, who showed reporters the crater, said three people were killed and 25 injured.

13. A truck crashed into a sinkhole after part of a bridge structure collapsed into a river in Changchun City, Jilin Province, a photograph taken on May 29, 2011. Two passengers of the truck were injured.

14. Workers repair a sinkhole after part of a bridge structure collapsed in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on July 15, 2011. The sinkhole reaches 20 meters long and one meter wide, the Qiantang Bridge in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou was blocked, and at least one driver was injured. The truck, which was carrying a load of steel plates, fell from the bridge, but its driver managed to jump out, Xinhua News Agency reported.

15. A sinkhole that appeared on the road after flooding in the city of Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, photo was taken on August 25, 2000. Helicopters evacuated people from flooded areas in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. total number the death toll was 93 people.

16. Rescuers use a crane to retrieve a bus from a hole in a Lisbon street, photo taken on November 25, 2003. The bus was parked on a Lisbon street when the ground began to sink in. No casualties were reported.

17. A failure on the Shouyang segment of the expressway that connects the provincial capitals of Hebei and Shanxi in northern China caused congestion, photo was taken March 28, 2006. A 100-meter crater, 10 meters wide and 10 meters deep, appeared on the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan highway. Nobody was hurt, and the reason for the failure was not found out.

18. Palestinians look at a destroyed tunnel after an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza-Egyptian border in the southern Gaza Strip, photo taken December 31, 2008.

19. Bird's-eye view of the ruins of an apartment building and a destroyed road in the village of Nachterstedt, photo taken on July 18, 2009. Three residents went missing in the eastern German village of Nachterstedt after their lakeside homes and another building suddenly collapsed into the water. A 350-meter stretch of shore collapsed into a lake, 170 kilometers southwest of Berlin.

20. Police inspect a collapsed stretch of highway in Hefei, Anhui province, photo taken August 8, 2009. Taxis and several motorcycles crashed, local media reported.

21. Jordanian Bedouins with their livestock next to a sinkhole that appeared on the southern shore of the Dead Sea on 12 January 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 drops by one meter (three feet) per year. According to ecologists, sinkholes appear precisely as a result of a decrease in the water level.

23. A soldier from the first platoon of the US Army walks past a crater left by an improvised explosive device in the village of Khaleqdad Khan in the Zabul province of Afghanistan, photo taken May 26, 2012.

24. Workers carry out repair work in an area on a road in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, photo taken 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, no casualties have been reported.

27. A rescue team works near the collapsed section of Highway 549 near Lake Landvetter outside Gothenburg, photo taken December 11, 2006. In the western part of Sweden, thunderstorms have passed.

28 San Diego Highway 15 sinkhole on Feb.24. It was formed as a result of the failure of drainage pipes, which burst due to heavy rains. The resulting sinkhole is about eight hundred feet long ago, forty feet wide and seventy feet deep.

29. Locals walk past a car that fell into a sinkhole on the road. The sinkhole was caused by heavy rains in the northeastern Spanish city of Castelldefels, photo taken on October 9, 2002. Heavy rains hit the region, causing flooding, damage and transport problems, but no one was hurt.

30. Rescuers try to pull out a car that fell into a flooded hole in Borges de Medeiros Avenue in Rio de Janeiro, photo taken April 30, 2004. The driver, who did not want to identify himself, left open door from the passenger side, and could only watch as the car plunged into a flooded hole. The failure was formed as a result of the rupture of the water pipes. The dip was two and a half meters wide. Rio's famous Corcovado mountain is visible in the background in this photo.

31. Failure formed after the earthquake in India.

32. Rescuers at Los Angeles utility workers look at a sinkhole caused by torrential rains on Tujunga Avenue in the Sun Valley area of ​​Los Angeles, photo taken February 19, 2005.

33. A car is lifted from a sinkhole formed at the site of a collapsed road surface in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, photo taken September 7, 2008. The road collapsed Sunday afternoon and cars crashed into a pit 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 West Dawang Road in Beijing, photo taken November 29, 2007. Proval is located near one of the busiest intersections in the Central Business District.

35. A utility worker examines a 25-meter (82-foot) sinkhole following a landslide in Bellevue Hill, one of Sydney's most expensive suburbs, on May 29, 2009. No one was injured during the landslide, as a result of which cars parked on the street were underground.

36. A woman walks along the destroyed TF326 highway after part of it collapsed after a storm, near the village of Palo Blanco on Canary Islands, Spanish island of Tenerife, photo taken November 23, 2009. Heavy rain fell in the northern part of the island of Tenerife, blocking some roads, damaging others, and causing flooding of a huge number of homes and businesses.

37. A 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, 30 by 40 meters in size, appeared in the center of a residential area, according to local police.

38. People inspect the partially destroyed road, and the dog breaks into the pit. Photo taken in the poor Carretera Vieja neighborhood in Caracas on November 26, 2010. Three children died in a landslide in the San Agustin slum in the Venezuelan capital following heavy rains that continued in the region for several days, according to information provided by local media and rescue officials.

39. A bird's eye view of the damaged Gran Marical de Ayacucho highway in Miranda state outside Caracas, photo taken December 1, 2010. Thousands of Venezuelans fled their homes after landslides and floods killed at least 21 people.

40. Locals inspect a road that collapsed when flash floods hit Toowoomba, 105 kilometers (65 miles) west of Brisbane, photo taken January 10, 2011. Residents of Australia's third largest city, Brisbane, were forced to evacuate by flooding.

41. A Thai man next to a sinkhole allegedly caused by a bombing raid in Si Sa Ket province near the ancient eleventh century Preah Vihear temple on the border between Thailand and Cambodia, photo taken on February 5, 2011.