Story:
Pictures show appearance of a giant and massive sinkhole in the city of Guatemala, that is thought to have been triggered by tropical storm Agatha, a violent tempest that struck Central America. The sink hole measured 18 meters wide and about 100 meters deep and completely swallowed an entire three-story building.
Analysis:
The pictures are genuine and the incident mentioned in the story is a fact. Sink holes are natural depressions of earth’s surface caused by Karst processes – the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or Suffosion processes. But the giant hole in Guatemala did not form because of any dissolution of carbonate rock. Guatemala City is not underlain by any kind of carbonate rock; instead, it has thick deposits of volcanic ash, unwelded ash flow tuffs, and other volcanic debris. This giant hole in Guatemala actually occurred in May 2010, measuring about 20 m wide and 30 m deep and is caused as a result of “piping pseudokarst” , created by the collapse of large cavities that had developed in the weak, crumbly Quaternary volcanic deposits underlying the Guatemala city.
This is not the first time that a such a hole occurred in Guatemala city, the first occurrence was in the year 2007 February, when a similar 30-story-deep hole occurred, killing 3 people. Read the article here.
Hoax or Fact:
Mixture of hoax and facts.
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