YOW. Look at this sucker.
(Is that really just Photoshopped??)
THAT, dear people, is the mother of all sinkholes, according to the news folks. It swallowed a THREE STOREY building (and everything in it). Don’t go here to learn more about it– go here. Apparently, a tropical storm (Agatha) blew through Guatemala. The
Tropical Storm Agatha swept across Central America yesterday, bringing torrential rain that killed more than 100 people and opened a 60m-deep sinkhole in Guatemala City which reportedly swallowed up a three-storey building.
The first named storm of the 2010 Pacific season dumped more than a metre of rain in parts of Guatemala, also hitting El Salvador and Honduras. At least 113 people were reported killed, with around 50 missing in Guatemala alone as rescue workers searched through the rubble.
The 30m-diameter sinkhole opened up in a northern district of Guatemala City, with residents blaming the rains and substandard drainage systems. Local reports said one man was killed when the building was swallowed. In 2007, three people died when a similar sinkhole appeared in the same area.
It’s nice to see a news report spell the word “storey” correctly. Not even Spell Check can get it right.
ANYWAY.
WHY the people would plunk a city in the middle of a swamp baffles me. It’s like Los Angeles or Mexico City– hey, who cares if the subsoil is about to crack open and swallow us all up?! Let’s build a big city here, expand it, and dump really expensive homes in the place!! And then, when disaster strikes, we’ll demand that the federal government declare an “emergency” and all the other sane folks living in non-disaster locations will bail us out!!!
It’s really sad that disasters happen. But if you are ASKING for them to begin with, and sympathy is not forthcoming… why do you complain?
Anyway, I hope the Guatemalans are doing OK. It’s gotta be tough. I feel sorry for those folks.
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