Louisiana Sinkhole Opens Up to Swallow Dozens of Trees [WATCH VIDEO]
A massive sinkhole in rural Louisiana, U.S., has opened up and continued to expand at a rapid rate which caused it to devour a clump of trees and land. The video of the Louisiana sinkhole was captured on video and posted on Youtube by the Assumption Parish Police Jury.
The video footage showed around a dozen trees suddenly swallowed by in seconds by the massive sinkhole. The trees can be seen near the sinkhole's sides. The trees can be seen slowly beginning to sink for about six seconds into the footage. In about 41 seconds, the tops of the trees can no longer be seen above the gurgling water.
The same sinkhole has already displaced about 150 families in the Louisiana town of Bayou Corne. OpEd News reported that the sinkhole has a width of 28 acres. Louisiana environmentalists and geologists have said the sinkhole should be considered as an environmental disaster.
The Louisiana sinkhole has not received a lot of media attention until this new video showing the sinkhole swallowing trees. A previous article was published containing interviews from local experts who believed the Louisiana sinkhole may have been caused by an abandoned cave nearby with an underground salt dome.
Residents of Assumption Parish continued to worry since last spring when they observed a strange bubbling of water in the Grand Bayou. The bubbling water was reported to smell like sulfur and fuel. It was months after that the Louisiana sinkhole grew to be the size of "three football fields". This forced residents to evacuate the area and move someplace safe. The sinkhole measures 15 acres wide more than a year after its sudden appearance in the Bayou.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, sinkholes can appear naturally due to pollution and most frequently seen in areas like Florida with underlying groundwater and soluble rocks.
A sinkhole in Florida opened up recently and swallowed a hotel. No one was hurt in that incident and the owners of the hotel has since been back in business, inviting guests to come "down".