The huge hole that appeared a week ago in a farmland in the Mexican state of Puebla is now more than 320 feet in diameter (almost 100 meters) and has a depth of 65 feet (20 meters), equivalent to a three-story building.
Scientists have plunged into the depths of the water inside to investigate its origins, while
local authorities expanded the security perimeter around it
to prevent further subsidence from causing casualties.
A house nevertheless remains hanging from the abyss,
suspended over the gigantic sinkhole after the masonry wall that surrounded it sank into its waters.
"It was heard like thunder," says a neighbor of the giant sinkhole in Mexico
June 4, 202101: 49
"It hurts a lot so much sacrifice, we go hungry, the truth does hurt us a lot, because we do not know what will happen to us," said its owner, Magdalena Xalamihua,
regretting not having received help from the authorities.
"We are hurt from the house that we are seeing that little by little and to pieces it is going to go to where everything ends," he added.
["A matter of enormous risk": the sinkhole grows in Puebla and reaches the walls of an adjoining house]
The hole originated in a farmland in the Juan C. Bonilla municipality, just over 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the city of Puebla.
"It is a matter of enormous risk,"
said the state governor, Miguel Barbosa.
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Scientists from the National Center for Disaster Prevention, the National Polytechnic Institute and the Autonomous University of Puebla carried out geophysical studies to determine the origin of the sinkhole in these lands located 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the Popocatépetl volcano.
His provisional conclusion is that it is
"highly possible that its origin is associated with the presence of underground water flows,"
according to the newspaper Milenio.
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To avoid damage to the population, the experts recommended expanding the security perimeter in the face of the danger that the sinkhole continues to grow, since hundreds of people gathered at its edges to observe it.
[A hole the length of an airplane threatens to swallow a house in Mexico]
Neighbors of nearby houses
, however, fear the tremors caused by the sinkhole every time it enlarges,
since, as they observe, it is causing cracks in their houses.
Scientists are also investigating the nearby artisanal wells, where the previously crystalline water, according to these sources, now appears turbulent.