A massive sinkhole decimated a resort villa near Walt Disney World on Aug. 12. The sinkhole measured 40 to 50 feet in diameter and collapsed a three-story building at the Summer Bay Resort in Clermont, Florida. No one was injured, but witnesses could hear the buildings cracking as the sinkhole opened up.
John Raoux/AP
A giant sinkhole opened during the rains of Tropical Storm Agatha in Guatemala City, pictured on Monday. More than 94,000 people have been evacuated as the storm buried homes under mud and swept away a highway bridge near Guatemala City.
Handout / Reuters
A giant sinkhole swallowed several homes in Guatemala City in February 2007. At least three people were confirmed missing, officials said.
Daniel Leclair / Reuters
A Ford Explorer was swallowed by a 15-foot-by-20-foot-wide sinkhole at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and 73rd Street in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn in March 2006. A water main break caused the pavement to crumble under the SUV as it sat at a red light, but a gas pipe 5 feet below street level stopped the vehicle from plunging deeper into the 20-foot-deep hole.
New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images
A 200-foot-by-240-foot sinkhole opened up on Soledad Mountain Road in October 2007 in La Jolla, California. The landslide damaged or destroyed six homes and forced the evacuation of at least 20 others.
Kent Horner / Getty Images
A sinkhole is shown near Picher, Oklahoma, in April 2008. Years of lead and zinc mining has turned the town into a superfund site with sinkholes, lead-laced mountains of rock, and tainted water.
Charlie Riedel / AP Photo
A fire truck plunged into a sinkhole in the Valley Village neighborhood of Los Angeles in September 2009. Four firefighters escaped injury after their fire engine sank into a large hole caused by a burst water main in the San Fernando Valley, authorities said.
Nick Ut / AP Photo
Four people, including two children, went missing after a sinkhole triggered by a landslide swallowed their house in Saint-Jude, Quebec, northeast of Montreal, in May 2010.
The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes / AP Photo
A house sat precariously on the edge of an ever-widening sinkhole that had already claimed one home in the Sea Cliff area of San Francisco, in December 1995. The house was declared unsafe by the city and demolished.
Ben Margot / AP Photo
A car carrying two passengers fell into a sinkhole in April 2004, in Owings Mills, Maryland. Both female passengers were transferred to shock trauma.
Matt Houston / AP Photo
A 30-by-100-foot sinkhole swallowed a three-way intersection in Shoreline, Washington, in January 1997. The combination of snow melt, rain, broken water, and drainage lines contributed to the washout.
Douglas C. Pizac / AP Photo
