Five houses were cut off from the main road as the hole appeared, so residents had to be evacuated. Its size is so big, that authorities believe it can take weeks or even months until they repair it.
If you ever thought it’s impossible not to find your house on the same place when returning home, then you may be wrong.
Several people in Britain found this out at the moment when a huge sinkhole cracked the road in Hertfordshire, cutting the houses off the road. The event happened just the night before authorities scheduled its repair.
The unpleasant event took authorities by surprise.
“Following our inspection, there was no reason to suspect that the hole would collapse,” declared a member of the Hertfordshire County Council.
The hole which appeared on the driveway and extended to a nearby yard has a width of 60 feet and a depth of 33 feet.
The county council found out about the hole after a mailman got injured. The officials stated that they didn’t know the small hole would become so large, as in Hertfordshire such holes appear suddenly for historic motive, declared Richard Thake, member of Community Safety.
The reasons why these sinkholes appear all of a sudden are represented by the climate change, characterized by an alternation between wet winters and dry summers, which can lead to an unstable ground. Soft rocks dissolving quickly represent another reason, just as the falling water from the roofs, which make the ground soaked with liquid.
The event is not the first of its kind to appear in England. Esri, a company which analyses geographical areas, recorded another 8 sinkholes appearing in 2014.
Five houses were cut off from the main road as the hole appeared, so residents had to be evacuated. Its size is so big, that authorities believe it can take weeks or even months until they repair it.
When such events happen, it is clear that they are not pleasant at all. However, they are common in other parts of the world. Florida, for example, had more than 300 holes over the last 5 years. Brooklyn experienced that as well when, because of leaky pipes, a sinkhole appeared on August.
What makes sinkholes appear in the US is the limestone being eroded by water, in comparison with England, where the process is similar, only that chalk replaces the limestone.
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