It doesn’t rarely happen that in some locality a piece of land goes underground, and sometimes even houses fall there. In this case, geologists begin to discuss some kind of karst failures. What is it all about? Are there such places in our country?
Simply put, this is a failure of the soil. It arises in the case when the groundwater is washed under a certain area with large voids, after which the thinned base simply does not withstand gravity.
Moreover, karst dips can be different: some of them in diameter do not exceed one and a half meters, but more often it happens that the funnel reaches a dozen or two meters across. If several failures are connected at once, a giant hollow may form.
If the geodetic reconnaissance finds out that in some place the probability of such an outcome is high, then building something more complicated there is strictly forbidden!
You should not assume that karst dips occur only on land: there are much more at the bottom of the ocean. They are called "blue holes." They arose many millions of years ago, when the level of the world's oceans was much lower.
In general, such formations on the planet are very common. Despite this, their appearance makes an incredible impression on any person, and therefore many failures regularly bring millions of dollars to the budget of the countries where they are located.
Tourists are drawn to them by a continuous chain. Thus, karst dips can be very useful.
So, in Texas there is a huge funnel, which is known as the "Devil's Hole." Tourists are scared not so much by the name and gloomy appearance of the place as by the huge flocks of bats who have long considered this place their home.
The karst failure in Guatemala is well-known: in 2010 in the capital of the state a whole house went underground. At this place, a giant funnel formed, the depth of which was 60 meters and a diameter of 30 meters.
Then one person died. But this was far from the first case! So, in 2007, the same failure was already forming in the same city.
If you go to Abkhazia, then the local employees of travel companies will surely “embrace” you an excursion to Lake Ritsa. This is exactly the same karst funnel, only filled with water. In general, in the world there are many lakes that formed in this way. They are distinguished by the correct shape, small diameter of the water mirror and huge depth. There are many such reservoirs near Lake Baikal.
We should also recall the karst failure in Buturlino. This is not the name of a remote province of Central Africa, but a small village in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
He became famous after one night a giant funnel formed right on its main street. The depth of formation was “modest” 14 meters, while the diameter of the hole was 40 meters.
Fortunately, the victims were completely avoided, as people evacuated from their homes on their own, sensing the beginning movement of the soil. As a result, only their property was damaged: three houses completely went underground, and many neighboring buildings received noticeable damage that day.
