Sinkhole Incidents On the Rise

"Stretch zones primarily experience sinking ground, as the support in the rock strata is stretched thin. Thus, buildings implode and gas and water mains break." ZetaTalk

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ZetaTalk

What happens to rock layers under a diagonal pull, or being pulled apart? As can be seen during recent years, this has resulted in derailing trains, sinkholes suddenly appearing, gas and water main breaks, torn roadways and separating bridges. Despite the effect on man, crawling about on the surface of what they assume to be terra firma, these changes are superficial. When the pulling starts, weak points break and thereafter the plumbing and roadways hold, giving the impression that the pulling has stopped, but this is misleading. The North American continent is giving evidence that its rock layers are separating from each other, and sliding sideways in a diagonal, thus exposing portions of these layers to vent into the air above. If rock is being stressed, then where are the earthquake predictors giving evidence of this, the frantic animals, the static on the radio, the earthquake swarms? Rock in the stretch zone, pulling apart rather than compressing, does not emit the particles flows that animals and radios sense, nor register on instruments are tension and release quakes.

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ZetaTalk

"We have repeatedly stated that the Earth changes will not diminish, but will increase going into the pole shift.

This is not a lineal matter, as the closer Planet X comes to Earth, an inevitable path, the more the torque effect and the polar wobble where the N Pole of Earth is pushed away violently on a daily basis, occur. The wobble will become more pronounced, more violent. The plates are tugged back West of the Atlantic, pulled forward East of the Atlantic, during the daily rotation of the Earth. The North American continent is allowed to roll East during rotation while the S Pole is pulled West, creating the diagonal pull likely to trigger the New Madrid fault line into an adjustment, and soon. The N Pole is pushed away and allowed to bounce back, daily, as the Earth rotates, a wobble that puts stress on all fault lines when the plates are suddenly in motion, and suddenly stopped!

"As there is no other explanation for the effect on the stretch zone, lacking any earthquakes to blame, and as these stretch zone accidents will continue to emerge, and with ferocity, this is a certain clue to those on the fence, that the influence of Planet X is the cause. Or is it Global Warming?"

ZetaTalk Chat Q&A for April 13, 2013

"Sinkholes almost invariably form in areas subject to karst limestone cavern formation. Underground water flows eat away the limestone leaving vast caverns and caves, which often give scant indication above ground that a cavern lies below. Karst limestone rock formations have been mapped and are known, however, but since one never knows just where a cavern might have formed, this provides little help in predicting just where a sinkhole might form. Sinkholes open up when the rock is fractured due to stress from being in the stretch zone, from the bending of a plate, or due to torsion."

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Comment by Howard on August 13, 2011 at 12:57am: Water and Gas Main Break Opens Gaping Sinkhole in Harlem - Manhattan, New York
Discovered August 12th

HARLEM — A water and gas main break on St. Nicholas Avenue sent a geyser shooting up into the air and opened up a gaping hole in the street Friday afternoon, witnesses and authorities said.

The massive crater appeared in front of a bus stop on St. Nicholas Avenue, near 152nd Street, at around 12:30 p.m. while fire crews were investigating the smell of gas in the area, according to FDNY Battalion Chief Michael Brown.

Woody Valez, 41, a cook who lives on the block, was walking to the store when he smelled gas and heard an explosion.

"It was a loud boom," he said. "No one knew what happened until we saw the water shooting in the air. It was a lot of water."

Fire officials cordoned off the block, but no buildings were evacuated because there was no sign of elevated gas levels. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Officials from the city's Department of Environmental Protection said that a 12-inch water main that was installed in 1956 had ruptured, leaving 100 to 150 families without water on St. Nicholas Avenue between 150th and 153rd streets.

Service was expected to be restored Friday evening.

Con Ed spokesman Allan Drury said that the utility had received several reports from customers who said that they had no gas. They believe that water may have gotten into the gas main.

Workers from both agencies were trying to isolate the source of the leak. When the gas line is capped, they can start fixing the water main, officials said.

Residents said that the cavernous hole has been plaguing the block for years.

"There has always been a sinkhole there. Its always been caving in," said filmmaker Greg Whitmore, 35.

In fact, the hole had grown so large in recent months that residents put a garbage can in it to warn motorists.

He said workers would come by from time to time to fix the hole, but the problem had been getting worse since May.

On St. Nicholas Avenue and 151st Street, Celeste Hollman sat across the street from her building with the six people that live in her apartment.

"I told my children to pack two outfits because I'm not taking any chances," she said while holding a hastily-packed plastic bag full of clothes between her legs.

"I'm not going back until I know they have fixed that pipe. I'll sit here all night if I have to. My daughter is nervous and scared."

Other residents stocked up on supplies. Reynaldo Morel bought four gallons of water from a nearby bodega. "The water is dirty," he said.

Express trains on the A line, which runs underneath St. Nicholas Avenue, were being rerouted to the local line between 145th Street and 168th Street, according to the MTA's website.

The agency said that delays can be expected on the A and C lines.

Because of the break, B train service was suspended along the entire length of the line, from Bedford Park in The Bronx to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn.

There was also no D train service between 145th and 167th streets.

Comment by Howard on August 12, 2011 at 7:16pm: Sinkhole Closes Road in Montoursville (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Discovered August 11th

A sinkhole has a section of Broad Street in Montoursville closed, and it may be that way for a few days.

According to PennDOT, the sinkhole that opened just west of Loyalsock Avenue Thursday afternoon was caused by a water main break.

Now both directions of Broad Street are closed so repairs can be made.

Eastbound and westbound Broad Street traffic near Loyalsock Avenue will be detoured until further notice. Traffic that would normally enter Montoursville on Broad Street will use the Route 87 exit off I-180.

According to PennDOT, traffic signals at Broad Street and Loyalsock Avenue will be placed in the flashing mode while repairs are underway.

It may be several days before the work is completed.

Homes and businesses along the closed section of Broad Street can be accessed by the alleys off Loyalsock Avenue north and south of Broad Street.

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on August 12, 2011 at 5:04pm

Howard. This is from an italian newspaper but I can't figure out how to translate it to English. It is specifically about all the sinkholes happening in Naples, Italy

Tre voragini si aprono nel centro di Napoli

Autore: Redazione Campanialive.it
23/09/2009 (letto 1642 volte)

Stamane 3 voragini si sono aperte nel centro di Napoli.

Tre voragini si sono aperte a Napoli centro nella zona piazzetta San Carlo alle Mortelle: Le forze dell'ordine hanno proceduto allo sgombero di circa 40 famiglie. L'area è stata chiusa al traffico per motivi precauzionali. Secondo i Vigili del fuoco, una prima voragine si e' creata nella chiesa San Carlo alle Mortelle dove il pavimento ha ceduto precipitando nella cavità sotterranea. Successivamente si è formata una spaccatura nella strada adiacente e un'altra al piano terra di una casa. La voragine, dai rilievi effettuati, pare sia di circa 20 mt. di diametro.

Tre voragini si aprono nel centro di Napoli All'origine di questo episodio il dissesto del sottosuolo partenopeo e le piogge dei giorni scorsi che anche se non eccezionali potrebbero aver causato o innescato il fenomeno.

Torna quindi alla ribalta delle cronache il problema del sottosuolo napoletano che pieno di cavità e dissesti preoccupa non poco la cittadinanza alle prese dopo ogni pioggia intensa con gli atavici problemi derivanti dalla incuria e dallo scarso interesse delle istituzioni al problema.

Torna in cima

Ricerca articoli

Comment by Starr DiGiacomo on August 12, 2011 at 4:58pm: Casalnuovo, Italy. August 11th, 2011.

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Ben

A special thanks to our european contributor, Waldërn Von Feld.

Garbage truck + sinkhole = deadly sinkhole.

A deadly accident took place Tuesday night in Casalnuovo, near Naples. A hole with a depth of ten meters and a width of twenty meters opened in the asphalt of Via Romano Strettola, literally swallowing a garbage truck into the sinkhole that occurred. The driver reportedly seeing the abyss, applied the brakes, but did not manage to stop in time. A water leak was the cause of the giant sinkhole.

The driver died instantly. The two workers who are usually in the back of the truck were injured in the accident, tells an eye-witness to the Italian newspaper”La Repubblica”.

But the sinkhole has had other consequences. A building on the street in question, with 25 families residing in it had to be evacuated.

The recovery of the body from the affected road was also not without risks. A firefighter fell into the pit and had to be rescued. Taken to hospital, the worker’s injuries are not considered life threatening, neither are the injuries of the two other sanitation workers who were wounded.

http://thesinkhole.org/

Comment by Sevan Makaracı on August 12, 2011 at 11:55am: Xiang'an District, Xiamen, China. August 11:

A big sinkhole appeared without warning at around 12 am Wednesday on a road in Xiang’an District, Xiamen, but no one was injured, reports Strait News. The sinkhole on Zengwu Road near Meidi Yadeng Neighborhood is at least 2 metres deep and 1 metre in diameter, fortunately, no one was walking on the section when the accident happened, according to Xiang’an officials. Crews have shut down the road and worked through the night to clean the rubble in the hole. An underground pipe, which was crushed by heavy-duty vehicles several years ago and failed to be repaired, was considered to have caused the road to cave-in. Ms Huang, who lives around the site, hoped an overall check for groundsill in the area will be launched to prevent things like this from happening again.

Comment by Howard on August 12, 2011 at 1:28am: 190-ft Sinkhole Discovered Beneath I-90 Connector Tunnel - Boston, MA
August 2011

A large sinkhole has opened up underneath the road surface inside one of the Big Dig tunnels. The hole is about 190 feet long and four feet deep.

It’s right beneath the I-90 connector tunnel near Logan Airport. Transportation officials say the hole does not pose any immediate danger to drivers because it’s nine feet beneath the surface.

The sinkhole was created by the settling of clay around the tunnel.

The Big Dig has a history of construction problems and cost overruns, with the latest issue to plague the Big Dig revealed by Mass-Dot officials.

Mass-Dot administrator Frank Depaolo says there is no emergency and should be no concern for the public.

In order to carve out the ground for the Big Dig tunnel, crews chemically froze the soil around South Station 11 years ago. The freezing process helped ensure the ground wouldn’t cave in, and engineers expected it to thaw and for the soil to settle. Just not as quickly as it is currently settling.

As a result, Mass-Dot says a hole has formed about eight feet beneath the I-90 connector. Although officials don’t know its depth or its length, they do say it could run the length of the tunnel itself, nearly 200 feet. What’s more, as a result, the ground is starting to buckle around South Station train tracks.

Mass-Dot defends the sinking problem, saying it poses no danger to the public. Officials say the tunnel was designed to act as a bridge. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino says he has every confidence the hole will be repaired.

"There's no safety issues here at all. Some people want to blow it up. There's no safety issues here at all," says Mayor Menino. "It's something we have to deal with and we will deal with and I know the Governor's office said that they're firmly committed to finding out what happened and how we can fix it."

Engineers will wait longer for soil to continue to settle and then fill the hole permanently with concrete in late 2013 or 2014. It is a big repair and consequently will cost $15 million. Mass-Dot officials say they have already spent $10 million to shore up ground around tracks at South Station.

Engineers Question Sinkhole Explanation

As state officials rushed to reassure drivers unnerved by yet another problem in the Big Dig tunnels, and US Representative Stephen F. Lynch called for a federal investigation, engineers said today they found it hard to believe that thawing soil alone could have caused a sinkhole to open beneath the 1-90 Connector.

Joseph Sopko has frozen ground for the construction of the Silver Line tunnel under Russia Wharf in Boston, a giant gold mine in Ontario, and sewage tunnels in Milwaukee. He said the earth around those projects has never settled by eight feet, as it has around the I-90 Connector.

“Those numbers are just way out of line,” said Sopko, an engineer who was not personally involved in the I-90 project, but works for Moretrench, the company that did the freezing there. “I did my doctoral dissertation on ground-freezing and I just can’t see, mathematically, how you can get that kind of compression.”

David K. Mueller, an engineer and vice president at Moretrench, who worked directly on the I-90 Connector project, said eight feet of settlement was more than he had seen in the 30 frozen-ground projects he has worked on.

“On most of the ground-freezing projects we’ve done, we’ve never seen any settlement,” he said.

Workers used chemicals to freeze the ground 11 years ago, allowing them to build the tunnel without the soil caving in. They completed the freezing process in 2002, and said they expected some settlement to occur as the ground thawed. But state officials said the ground has receded twice as much as they anticipated.

Though they say they are not sure what caused the problem, they disclosed on Wednesday that the thawing soil has left a sinkhole below the roadway, which has filled with water because the area is below the water table.

Engineers have not been able to see the sinkhole because of its remote location, 60 feet below ground, but have estimated that it could be 4 feet deep and up to 190 feet long. They say it poses no threat to drivers because tests show the tunnel could span the gap like a bridge over a river.

They plan to fill the space with concrete, once the area is completely thawed, sometime in late 2013 or early 2014.

The state has spent $15 million to date to monitor the situation, and has budgeted $10 million more for repairs. The money comes from a $485 million fund set up by the Big Dig’s contractors, to avoid liability for the fatal tunnel collapse in 2006, leaks, and other problems on the project.

“We’re confident the tunnels are safe, and they can withstand any of these stresses for as long as necessary, and well beyond their service life,” said Frank DePaola, the state highway administrator. “We’re not going to let the void stay there for that long just for durability and longevity. But it could. Very similar to a bridge spanning a river, it stays there for 50 to 75 years.”

Mel Levy, a retired tunnel engineer for the New York City Transit Authority, speculated that the tunnel may not be resting evenly on its base. That, he said, could cause the tunnel to bend and stress.

“The problems are more serious than they’re talking about,” he argued.

Lynch said he has asked the Federal Highway Administration to join the state in conducting a thorough inspection.

“Due to the high volume of commuter traffic using this roadway and the public safety issues involved, due diligence requires that we obtain a structural assessment to reassure the public that the situation is safe,” the congressman from South Boston said in a statement. “The safety of the public must be our top priority.”

Engineers have been freezing the earth for excavation projects for more than a century. But the I-90 Connector was one of the largest such projects ever. Officials chose to use ground freezing so they could build the tunnel under the train tracks without disrupting rail service.

“Ground-freezing is, without a doubt, the most expensive approach,” Sopko said. “But it’s for projects that can’t be done any other way.”

Andrew J. Whittle, a soil engineer at MIT and member of the state Department of Transportation board, said the state needs to find out why the ground has settled that much, so as to hold the proper contractor responsible.

“I can’t see how thawing would produce this movement alone,” he said. “There must be something else at play, and it probably is worth investigating.”

Whittle offered one theory. He noted that workers have had to place 8 feet of rock under the train tracks into South Station, to keep the tracks level as the ground there has settled. He said those rocks could be pressing the soil down.

“The fact that there are 8 feet of stone one the surface is the piece that people have missed,“ he said. “Eight feet of stone is a lot of stone and, for sure, that could drive this. “

DePaola, however, dismissed the idea that those stones weigh enough to depress the ground.

Thomas C. Sheahan, a civil engineer at Northeastern, said the soil itself could be a factor, because it is mostly Boston Blue Clay.

“From a soil point of view, it loses some of its strength,” when it is dug up during construction, he said. “This phenomenon of the sensitivity of the clay could be leading to additional settlement than would normally be predicted.”

Comment by Sevan Makaracı on August 11, 2011 at 11:07am: Broomall, Philadelphia, August 10:

The large sinkhole discovered on Wednesday afternoon at 370 Reed Road in Broomall has been placed on township and police alert.

Comment by Howard on August 8, 2011 at 7:18pm: Sinkhole in Saskatchewan, Canada

Discovered August 6

SWIFT CURRENT. City crews spent the weekend making repairs to a portion of 6th Ave. N.E. after a sinkhole developed in the middle of the street around the 300 block.

The street was blocked off around 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon when the sink hole suddenly appeared. A Swift Current Fire Department report notes that the hole was large and deep enough that a car could have easily fell into it. Fortunately, no vehicles were over the roadway when the cave in occurred.

A large natural gas line was exposed as a result of the sink hole, but there was no apparent damage to the line.

The cause of the sink hole is under investigation, and city crews excavated the area in order to conduct a full repair of the roadway.

Comment by Howard on August 5, 2011 at 8:44pm: Large Sinkhole Opens in Downtown Ellsworth, Maine

Discovered Aug 2

ELLSWORTH, Maine — The Maine Department of Transportation and Ellsworth city officials said Thursday that they will have to analyze video of a failed drainage system that caused a large sinkhole in a major intersection before deciding how quickly the system must be repaired.

Early Tuesday, a sinkhole measuring 8 to 10 feet deep and 4 to 6 feet wide opened near the intersection of Routes 1 and 3, State Street and Water Street after heavy rains undermined the aging drainage system. The sinkhole was repaired quickly but officials warned at the time the fix was only temporary.

On Thursday, city crews descended under the street and used a camera to help assess the extent of the damage to the drainage system. Failures in both a metal culvert and a clay pipe led to the washout that eventually caused the sinkhole.

“What we are doing now is going over the information that we got today and determining what the best course of action is,” said Mark Latti, spokesman for the DOT. “Can we wait until the fall to make the repairs or do we need to act sooner?”

The ramifications of tearing up a busy downtown intersection in the middle of the summer tourist season quickly became obvious Thursday morning as traffic in all four directions began stacking up while the crews worked underground.

In addition to sending crews with a camera into the drainage system, the DOT also re-excavated the top layer of the temporary patch, which had settled under the weight of traffic, and filled it with new asphalt.

The entire intersection was closed at 9 a.m. and traffic had to be rerouted, although some lanes were quickly reopened.

Michelle Beal, Ellsworth city manager, said if major repairs have to be made soon, the city has told the DOT that they would hope the work could be done at night to avoid hurting downtown businesses, commuters and tourists.

As for Thursday’s work, Beal said city and state officials wanted to make sure they knew what they were dealing with.

“There was a sense of urgency that we just didn’t know how bad of a situation we had with that sinkhole,” Beal said.

Latti said a decision on how to proceed likely would come within a week or two.

Comment by Howard on August 3, 2011 at 7:08pm: Large Sinkhole Closes Street in Montreal, Canada

Discovered August 2

MONTREAL - A sewer that's more than a century old broke in east-central Montreal, creating a sinkhole about five metres deep, according to the Ville Marie borough.

Ville Marie borough spokesperson Jacques-Alain Lavallée said the sewer beneath the asphalt that collapsed was built in 1889.

The sewer broke on Ontario St. E. at Plessis St. on Tuesday evening, creating the sinkhole.

Repairs began Wednesday morning but Ontario St. E. remains open, Lavallée said.

However, Plessis St. will be closed between Ontario and Sherbrooke Sts. for about a week during the repairs.

Sidewalks will stay open.

Asked if pieces of asphalt could cave in elsewhere on Montreal’s streets, Lavallée said it's possible.

“The underground network is pretty old in Montreal. With the number of trucks, that has increased, and the number of cars and the vibrations - who knows?”