Featured Image Credit: KSDK News
Topics: Environment, US News
Joe Yates
Horrifying footage shows the dramatic moment a 100-foot-wide sinkhole swallowed up a soccer pitch in just a matter of seconds.
The terrifying footage emerged from Illinois, US, showing just how quickly things can go from being fine to being like a scene from an apocalyptic movie.
In this particular case, two perfectly good artificial soccer and football fields were destroyed in just five seconds.
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Now, a crater sits in the middle Gordon F. Moore Community Park, in the city of Alton, but things could have been a lot worse.
Fortunately for everyone the pitches weren't in use, because if they were anyone within a few feet of the sinkhole certainly would not be here today - going off the sheer ferocity that the floodlight was thrown in the gaping hole.
But how does something like this even happen, and what is a sinkhole?
We've all heard of the word sinkhole, and while yes, we do know that it is a hole that randomly appears in the ground - or at least it's random to us - but that's probably the extent of our knowledge.
So, a sinkhole is a depression in the ground that has no natural external surface drainage. Basically, this means that when it rains, all of the water stays inside the sinkhole and typically drains into the subsurface.
According to the United States Geological Survey, a government agency that's work includes geology, they are more most common in what geologists call 'karst terrain'.
These are regions where the types of rock below the land surface can naturally be dissolved by groundwater circulating through them.
Soluble rocks include salt beds and domes, gypsum, limestone and other carbonate rock. While Florida, for instance, is an area largely underlain by limestone and is highly susceptible to sinkholes.
When water from rainfall moves down through the soil, these types of rock begin to dissolve. This creates underground spaces and caverns.
Sinkholes are dramatic because the land usually stays intact for a period of time until the underground spaces just get too big.
If there is not enough support for the land above the spaces, then a sudden collapse of the land surface can occur.
However, according to local reports, the sinkhole in Illinois was caused by an underground mine owned by New Frontier Materials.
A spokesperson for the company said: “No one was injured in the incident, which has been reported to officials at the Mine Safety Health Administration in accordance with applicable regulations.
“Safety is our top priority. We will work with the city to remediate this issue as quickly and safely as possible to ensure minimal impact on the community.”