A humongous sinkhole gobbled up a whole field in Wallace County, Kansas, leaving residents in shock and awe. The sinkhole first appeared on August 3 and has been growing ever since, according to several media reports.
The sinkhole is 200 feet wide and around 90 feet deep. The pasture belongs to a Sharon Springs resident, Dalton Hoss. The sinkhole was found by Hoss's brother.
"Actually, my brother found it. He called me up and his voice was quaking and he said, 'You'll never believe what I just saw," Hoss said to The Christian Today.
Though no casualties have been reported, large cracks continue to appear near the sinkhole that indicate the depression is growing. Officials are now concerned that if the hole gets any bigger, it might swallow nearby buildings and cause much structural damage. The sheriff of the county has asked the residents to stay safe and vigilant. The warnings have, however, not stopped curious inhabitants from flocking to the site to witness the curiosity.
Apparently, some people are even hiking down into the hole. Experts are still unable to identify the cause behind the growing sinkhole. The event has left people baffled. The Sheriff had an interesting opinion to offer.
"Man had nothing to do with this. This is a God thing. There's no oil well around here, there are no irrigation wells anywhere near. This is something that just happened," Sheriff Townsend said to isciencetimes.com.
Check out a video of the sinkhole below:
This is not the first event of a sinkhole appearing in the country. Just a few months back, a deadly sinkhole in Tampa, Florida opened up beneath resident Jeff Bush's bedroom and swallowed him, his bed, and his whole bedroom. Following this incident, another sinkhole was reported down in Dormont, Pennsylvania, which swallowed a parking lot at Dormont Pool.
Sinkholes like the one in Florida are called cover-collapse sinkholes and are very rare. They occur as a result of slight acidic groundwater dissolving underground limestone that leads the upper soil ceiling to give way to the pressure of whatever lies on top of it. It usually takes minutes to hours for it to get bigger and if spotted at the right time, casualties can be safely avoided.
Read more on how to avoid a sinkhole, here.
Sinkholes have also started appearing more rapidly in the states now. A feature at endoftheamericandream.com speculates that the earth's crust might be getting unstable. However, nothing concrete can be determined until the experts analyze the situation.
