When I was in Year 6 I read a book called Chadwick's Chimney and it messed me the heck up.
It's by Colin Thiele, who you probably know from your primary school library. He wrote Storm Boy, along with a whole swag of novels set in rural Australia.
Some of them were bittersweet, some of them were touching and some of them would give a kid nightmares.
Chadwick's Chimney is about a group of friends, living in rural Australia (surprise!) who, while scuba diving in a sinkhole, become trapped there after the rope ladder out of the slippery, limestone hole breaks.
So why am I bringing this up on an auto blog? Well, it's because sinkholes are no laughing matter.
The only way for them to get out is to swim into the labyrinth of sunken limestone tunnes and try to not drown. Thiele goes into detail about how the silt on the edges of the cave, if disturbed, will kick up a cloud of dust so intense that you'll lose your direction and get stuck, swimming in the wrong direction until you drown.
Did I mention this is a children's book, by the way.
So why am I bringing this up on an auto blog? Well, it's because sinkholes are no laughing matter. And they can appear on roads at a moment's notice.
Not just roads either. Have a look at this video of two pedestrians falling through an unstable section of pavement.
They can pop up anywhere and swallow you whole, like the maw of hell itself has decided to claim you, without offering prior warning or opportunity for redemption.
They are a frightening force of nature to be respected, and feared.
Now that I've said that, let's watch a video of this guy driving his scooter into a sinkhole and do our best to not laugh.
You laughed, didn't you.
You sicko.
Luckily the rider in the video is fine, managing to escape the accident with only minor injuries.
Not only that, but if you look closely at the footage, he seems to be looking at his phone before the accident, so you don't have to feel as bad about yourself for laughing.
That being said - keep off your phones while you drive, people.
The video comes to us from China, which is kind of prone to sinkholes, even being home to the deepest one on earth in Chongquig. It's 662 metres deep. which (if the weird converter I found on Google is anything to go by) is roughly 200 stories, or a little over two Sydney Towers deep.
In some areas they can pop up anywhere seemingly (if you don't know the warning signs) out of nowhere.
Sinkholes mostly appear in areas where the rock below the Earth's surface is made of limestone or gypsum. As I've said in a previous article (and I can't believe I'd had to clarify this twice in two months) I'm not a geologist, or even a geology nerd, so if I've missed something important or interesting let me know in the comments.
Over time, rocks like limestone dissolve easily in water. So in areas where underground water tables run or shift, and the surface is on top of a layer of stone that's gradually taking on the structural integrity of a Berocca tablet, something is going to fall through.
We're lucky in Australia because most of our limestone is in the desert (incidentally, where Chadwick's Chimney is set), so sudden, surprise sinkholes aren't as common.
That being said, they're still terrifying. And in some areas they can pop up anywhere seemingly (if you don't know the warning signs) out of nowhere, like you've angered Gaea, Goddess of Earth.
Or at least Kwame from Captain Planet.
In 2014 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a sinkhole opened up in the middle of the National Corvette Museum and devoured eight of the exhibits.
Countries prone to sinkhole activity have been steadily developing quick and effective ways to deal with them. For example, in November last year a colossal 30 metre sinkhole appeared in the middle of a street in Fukuoka, Japan.
It was fixed in a week.
But, in some cases the damage is irrepairable.
Back in 2014 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a sinkhole opened up in the middle of the National Corvette Museum and devoured eight of the exhibits, including a 1962 black Corvette and the 1 millionth-built Corvette from 1992.
If you haven't seen the video, or havent seen it in a while, check it out. Unless you're a Corvette lover and you think it's going to cause you pain:
The point is, sinkholes can be really dangerous, and are absolutely, unequivocally, one-hundred-per-cent no laughing matter.
That being said...
Let's watch it one more time, for the road.
What's the scariest sinkhole you've ever seen or heard of? Frighten us in the comments below.
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