Sinkholes & Ground Failure
The ground opening up — sinkholes, subsidence and the sudden collapses that swallowed roads, houses and people.
Part of Natural Disasters
36 moments in this segment.
- — The 1971 Saint-Jean-Vianney landslide. A quick-clay collapse swallowed 40 homes in the Quebec village of Saint-Jean-Vianney, killing 31.
- — The Winter Park sinkhole. A huge sinkhole opened in Winter Park, Florida, in 1981, swallowing a house, cars and part of a swimming pool.
- — The Winter Park sinkhole. A huge sinkhole opened in Winter Park, Florida, in 1980, swallowing a house, cars and part of a pool.
- — The 2007 Guatemala City sinkhole. A vast sinkhole opened in Guatemala City, swallowing homes and killing several people.
- — The Berezniki sinkholes. Giant sinkholes over a collapsing potash mine have been swallowing parts of the Russian city of Berezniki for years.
- — The Daisetta sinkhole. A sinkhole rapidly grew to 275 metres wide in Daisetta, Texas, swallowing vehicles and oil tanks over a salt dome.
- — The Sarisariñama sinkholes. Venezuela's remote tepui plateaus hold vast, near-perfect natural sinkholes with unique ecosystems on their floors.
- — The 2010 Guatemala City sinkhole. A near-perfect circular sinkhole 20 metres wide and 60 metres deep swallowed a three-storey building in Guatemala City.
- — Collapsing salt and gypsum karst. Where water dissolves salt, gypsum or limestone underground, the surface can suddenly give way — a global hazard from Iraq to the Urals.
- — The Bayou Corne sinkhole. A collapsing salt cavern created a growing, bubbling sinkhole in the Louisiana bayou that forced a community to evacuate for good.
- — The Bayou Corne sinkhole. A failed salt cavern opened a bubbling, tree-swallowing sinkhole in Louisiana that forced a town's evacuation for years.
- — China's factory-floor sinkholes. Rapid groundwater pumping and construction have opened deadly sinkholes beneath Chinese cities and workshops.
- — The Seffner sinkhole. A sinkhole opened beneath a house in Seffner, Florida, swallowing a sleeping man in one of the state's notorious sinkhole collapses.
- — Appalachian mine subsidence. A century of underground coal mining leaves Appalachian towns sinking into hidden voids.
- — The Disney resort sinkhole. A sinkhole swallowed part of a resort near Disney World in Florida in 2013, filmed as it collapsed.
- — The Corvette Museum sinkhole. A sinkhole opened inside the National Corvette Museum in Kentucky, swallowing eight cars on camera.
- — The Siberian methane craters. Vast craters have blown open in the Siberian permafrost, apparently from methane bursting out of thawing ground.
- — The Solikamsk sinkhole. A flooded potash mine keeps opening a growing sinkhole beside the Russian city of Solikamsk.
- — Florida's sinkhole country. Central Florida's limestone bedrock dissolves to open sinkholes that regularly swallow roads, pools and houses.
- — The Gauteng dolomite sinkholes. Mining and water have dissolved the dolomite under South Africa's Gauteng province, opening sinkholes that swallow homes.
- — The Fontmell Magna and UK sinkholes. Britain's chalk and limestone regularly opens sinkholes that swallow roads and gardens.
- — The Mulberry phosphate sinkhole. A 15-storey-deep sinkhole opened under a Florida phosphate-gypsum stack, threatening the aquifer.
- — The 2016 Fukuoka sinkhole. A giant sinkhole swallowed a downtown Fukuoka street in Japan in 2016 — and was repaired within a week.
- — The Dead Sea sinkholes. As the Dead Sea shrinks, thousands of sinkholes are swallowing its shoreline, roads and buildings.
- — The sinkholes of Naples and Rome. Ancient quarries and aqueducts riddle the ground beneath Rome and Naples, opening 'voragini' in the streets.
- — The Rotorua and Earthquake Flat sinkholes. New Zealand's geothermal ground and old volcanic ash open enormous sinkholes on North Island farms.
- — The abandoned-mine collapses. Old undocumented coal and salt mines keep collapsing under towns across Appalachia and the Ruhr.
- — Guatemala's recurring sinkholes. Poor drainage over volcanic ash keeps opening deep, cylindrical sinkholes in Guatemala City's streets.
- — The Xining bus sinkhole. A sinkhole opened beneath a city bus in Xining, China, swallowing it and pedestrians on camera.
- — The Mečenčani sinkhole swarm. After the 2020 Petrinja earthquake, dozens of sinkholes opened around the Croatian village of Mečenčani.
- — Centralia and the burning ground. A coal-seam fire has burned under Centralia, Pennsylvania, since 1962, opening steaming sinkholes and emptying the town.
- — The Puebla mega-sinkhole. A sinkhole near Puebla, Mexico, grew for weeks in 2021, swallowing a house and edging toward more.
- — The Konya plain sinkholes. Over-pumping of groundwater for farming has pockmarked Turkey's Konya plain with hundreds of sinkholes.
- — The cover-collapse sinkholes. 'Cover-collapse' sinkholes open abruptly under roads, homes and cars across the karst belts of the world.
- — The 'December Giant' sinkhole. One of the largest natural sinkholes in the U.S. suddenly opened in Alabama in 1972.
- — The Agrigento landslide. A slow ground collapse in Agrigento, Sicily, wrecked a whole modern neighbourhood built on unstable clay in 1966.
