topic Re: Sinkholes? in The Round Table

Sinkholes?

cee-dee — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:38:45 GMT

Just lately there have been several reports of sinkholes opening up and some were near houses.

I wondered if soakaways to take surface water might play a part because not everywhere has surface water drains in addition to foul drains.

There's been sooooo much rain, the water has to drain away somewhere and in susceptible areas, the extreme amounts of water going in to the soakaways could cause problems?

Re: Sinkholes?

kiss*my*pixel — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:14:11 GMT

I have to admit to being worried about that in our garden, Cee-Dee. We have an old sinkhole/soakaway type-thingy in our garden, and with the amount of rain we've been having lately, I am wondering if one of us is going to be swallowed up by the ground any day soon.

Re: Sinkholes?

queenelsa83 — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:08:47 GMT

They really are a very freaky thing indeed to just appear like that, and often very dangerously too 😞

Re: Sinkholes?

*.*..lola..*.* — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 07:44:45 GMT

Everyday brings something new for us to fear LOL - I'd never even heard of a flippin sinkhole till a few months ago and now they're appearing all over the place

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/9908055/In-pictures-sinkholes-craters-and-collapsed-roads-around-the-world.html?frame=2825353

Re: Sinkholes?

margaret*e — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 07:51:59 GMT

Another one.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/39-sixth-sinkhole-39-leaves-house-close-collpase-203820798.html?vp=1#lFiJF1l

Re: Sinkholes?

*.*..lola..*.* — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 07:59:49 GMT

Holy Moly!!

Re: Sinkholes?

rose2008-2008 — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 12:41:39 GMT

Someone was right before when they said everyday brings something new to fear. Its like you will be too frightened to go out of your front door next. NOW a hole could open up and just SWALLOW YOU!!!!!!. Where would you go it would be awful,,being underground where no one could hear you. The stuff of NIGHTMARES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Re: Sinkholes?

lhasa.two — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 13:13:13 GMT

Sink holes aren't new though, it's just that there are more of them since the heavy rain and a build up of groundwater over certain types of substrates.

This explains some of the reasons:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26242258

Re: Sinkholes?

saasher2012 — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 15:59:16 GMT

I don't know if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but could mining also have something to do with it as well as the influx of water?

Re: Sinkholes?

5129frederick — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 20:50:15 GMT

As John Laurie (Frazer in Dad's Army) would have said: "We're doomed - DOOMED I tell you!"

It might not be quite that bad, YET!!! but in my opinion you'd surely be living in a fool's paradise if you did not make at least some contingency plans for the overseeing of an emergency situation.

At it's worst scenario cattle will have to be put down if footrot sets in. There will be a dire shortage of staple foods such as bread and milk as whole fields, no farms, face massive crop failure where the topsoil is washed away. The Government will have to step in more and more with subsidies. It is already happening to potatoes. That happened not so long ago when half the vegetables just rotted into the ground, and there were barely enough root vegetables to feed the livestock. **bleep**, stored for winter feed dragged in till April. Because of crop failure there was a massive bread and sugar shortage. I kid ye not - this happened in about 1973. You queued for everything. If you saw a queue outside the bakers, you'd join it, not knowing what you were queuing for. It was grim. My late father and I had to suppliament potatoes for spaghetti - we ended up enjoying it. Pasta - cheap, easy to cook and versatile. Start off with pasta of any type. Cheap as chips and easy to cook - has a very long shelf life. Follow this up with porridge - you don't need milk - it can be made with hot water, and is substance in an emergency. Long life milk, put into a cupboard and forgotton about. or better still, condenced milk - one teaspoon whitens and sweetens tea. Powedered eggs are already disappearing.

Start NOW - DON'T WAIT UNTILTHE ELEVENTH HOUR. Prophet of doom? I hope so

Re: Sinkholes?

*.*..lola..*.* — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 10:13:09 GMT

LOL Frederick

Yikes....another one:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/460775/Woman-critical-in-hospital-after-car-swallowed-by-sinkhole

"Delight in the wonder of sinkholes, the Grand Canyons of suburbia"

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/19/sinkholes-wonder-geology-geological-phenomena

Hmm I wonder if Jonathan Jones would still be saying that if he woke up one night and found himself at the bottom of one

Re: Sinkholes?

**forum-decorum** — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 19:13:16 GMT

Why.. every time I read this thread title when browsing the RT do I read it as skinholes? 😞

Re: Sinkholes?

saasher2012 — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 19:26:06 GMT

It could have read even worse ? lol.

Re: Sinkholes?

cee-dee — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 19:34:53 GMT

Here, they've not long comp[leted a small new-build estate and I think it's been build on unstable ground.

Here's a sample:-

Just to the right on that pic is a shaft (I think it was an airshaft to what was the mine below). The blokes working on the site said it was 300 metres deep, that's nearly 1000 feet!!! OK, they capped the shaft but when the site was nearly completed, guess what they put a few yards away from it?

Yep, that's right, a soakaway! Here it is with a cone on top:-

Re: Sinkholes?

cee-dee — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 19:45:08 GMT

At the other end of that site, the ground looks like this:-

Re: Sinkholes?

saasher2012 — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 20:40:26 GMT

That looks bloomin unstable to me, would a drought also cause problems as well as excessive water logging?

Re: Sinkholes?

lhasa.two — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:12:31 GMT

That's shale and asking for more trouble down the line.

I can't understand how the building inspector let that pass.

Re: Sinkholes?

lhasa.two — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:24:40 GMT

@saasher2012 wrote:
That looks bloomin unstable to me, would a drought also cause problems as well as excessive water logging?

saasher, unlikely drought would cause problems but groundwater would over time as it

creates carbonation which is where carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which then eats into the "stone".

I've seen it happen in old buildings but fortunately not a sinkhole!

Re: Sinkholes?

saasher2012 — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:35:21 GMT

Thank you! I just wondered if in a drought it would cause shrinkage & in turn when it rained it would start to become unstable. But you have answered that for me. Sam.