Giant Guatemalan 'Sinkhole' Is Worse Than We Thought

reillymj writes "Despite hundreds of media reports to the contrary, Sam Bonis, a geologist whose life work has been studying Guatemalan geology, has plainly said that the dramatic 'sinkhole' in Guatemala City that opened over the weekend isn't a sinkhole at all. Instead, he called it a 'piping feature' and warned that because the country's capital city sits on a pile of loose volcanic ash, the over one million people living on top of the pile are in danger. 'I'd hate to have to be in the government right now,' Bonis, who worked for the Guatemalan government's Instituto Geografico Nacional for 16 years, said. 'There is an excellent potential for this to happen again. It could happen almost anywhere in the city.'"

Look on the bright side

[IndustrialComplex]

Looks like the city nearly doubled its surface area!

Re:Look on the bright side

[Barrinmw]

This was the perfect opportunity for him to make a pun. "There is an excellent potential for this to happen again. It could happen almost anywhere in the city.' Should have been "I have a sinking feeling that this could happen again."

Division by Zero

[Drakkenmensch]

Don't do it.

I have a solution

[elrous0]

Just put giant parachutes on all the buildings.

Call in the Fantastic Four

[RivenAleem]

It's the Rise of the Silver Surfer!!!

It's not a sinkhole

[GungaDan]

Goatse recently moved to Guatemala City.

Hey wait, idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance a large amount of oil would fix things?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I think this guy used to be a software dev manager

[bobdotorg]

That huge gaping hole that swallowed your neighbor? That's not a geological bug, it's a 'feature'.

The entrance...

[Midnight Thunder]

I think we have just found the entrance to middle earth. Does anyone see any dinosaurs or dragons down there?

Well this is unusual

[imgod2u]

My ex made a /. headline!

Re:Look on the bright side

[NotQuiteReal]

That sucks.

I have an environment friendly solution!

[Phizzle]

Lets fill this thing with our corrupt career politicians and lawyers, I know the hole isn't big enough - but its a start!

Re:Look on the bright side

[Maxo-Texas]

The city could have a hole lot of problems.

Re:sinkhole

[Itninja]

Actually 'sinked' is more proper/correct, though I no it sounds weird. Kind of like the last line in To Kill a Mockingbird: "[Atticus] would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning"

This is Guatemala City!

[dorkinson]

A group of Iranian visitors inspecting the hole claimed that it was "madness", but they were quickly dealt with.

Re:Piping Feature? No...

[datapharmer]

That just looks like a lame knockoff of Yellowstone.

Re:Moving the country?

[IndustrialComplex]

Probably not even remotely possible due to its size, but a similar problem seems to have been created in Kiruna, in Sweden. The town sits on top of the world's largest iron ore mine, and the mine has created a large cavity under the town. They are moving everything, in some cases, literally brick by brick.

That sounds like an aweful lot of bork.

Re:Look on the bright side

[aquila.solo]

Yeah, what a money pit.

When I started here all there was was ash!

[RevWaldo]

All the other mayors said I was daft to build a city on top of ash, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em!

.

insightful? lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd that posting a RTFA comment is now meritorious enough to get someone an insightful mod. :/

Re:Moving the country?

[tlhIngan]

I dunno why, but I suddenly pictured a bunch of embarrassed Swedes whistling as they quietly move the town over a few hundred meters.

And a bunch of confused tourists wondering why their GPSes are off so badly - the map is right, but it says the town is somewhere else.

Re:Look on the bright side

[matrim99]

After seeing that amazing picture and realizing that it wasn't a really bad Photoshop job, I almost expected the headline to read "Higgs Boson Found!".

Re:Some good pictures

[ColdWetDog]

You know, Guatemala covers the geographic location of the ancient Mayan civilization.

It's getting pretty close to 2012.

Just sayin ...

Re:It's not a sinkhole

[rvw]

Goatse recently moved to Guatemala City.

Guatamala Opened Arse To Sink Everyone?

Re:Piping Feature? No...

[Forge]

Turkmenistan? Wikipedia is making up country names now?

Wikipedia may have made up Uzbekistan [wikipedia.org], but not Turkmenistan. That was made up by Burat or somebody.

Re:Errr... yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the same thing: "looks `shopped".

Good question as to why nobody's dropped a camera down the hole yet.

My theory is that most people in Guatemala are too poor to afford risking both a decent video camera and the crane/rigging equipment required to get a picture from a significant depth inside. Also they might be uneasy about the potentially unstable sides of the freaking huge hole in the ground and the certainly fatal drop if those walls collapsed. But that's just a guess...

Emergence Day

[Aqualung812]

That's not a sinkhole, that's a Emergence Hole [wikia.com]. Someone better toss a grenade in there ASAP before the Locusts Horde starts streaming out!

Re:Empathy?

[Anomalyst]

like anyone cares about someones dramatic loss of empathy.

Re:Look on the bright side

[hosecoat]

[It] isn't a sinkhole at all. Instead, he called it a 'piping feature'

it's not a hole it's a feature

Re:Look on the bright side

[dgatwood]

From orbit? It's the only way to be sure.

Re:Look on the bright side

[MarkGriz]

Nah... it's probably all downhill from here.

Re:Look on the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

So now the went from "GuateMala" to "GuatePeor"..

Re:Piping Feature? No...

[laejoh]

Naa, just a lame knockoff of goatse!

Re:Look on the bright side

[AliasMarlowe]

The city could have a hole lot of problems.

...unless they take a holistic approach to them!

#DIV/0! error

[PowerEdge]

When I see that picture, I am imagining a Guatemalan who just divided by zero and jumps into the hole exclaiming in their best Buzz Light-year voice: "To infinity and beyooooond!!!"

Re:Piping Feature? No...

[Maxo-Texas]

That is both very funny, well related, and yet more disgusting that I really want to process.

Re:Piping Feature? No...

[roman_mir]

He was getting too much spam on the Balrog account, it's a feature, not a bug.

Re:When I started here all there was was ash!

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, you don't know your ash from a hole in the ground.

Re:Errr... yeah

[Stormy Dragon]

So this city has a literal real estate bubble?

Re:Look on the bright side

[theguyfromsaturn]

Won't ever complain about the pot holes in my street again.