The Daily BuzzToledo, Ohio sinkhole swallows woman’s car
Those prone to paranoia, who suffer from visions of sidewalks opening up and swallowing them whole, might want to skip this story.
Yet another sinkhole incident has made splashing headlines, this time involving a car in Toledo, Ohio. A gaping sinkhole pulled an unsuspecting driver and her car about 10 feet underground on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
[ Related: Dog survives fall down deep sinkhole in Nova Scotia ]
The news wire reported the woman, Pamela Knox, needed a ladder to clamber out of the hole and authorities had to pull the car out using a crane.
Knox went to the hospital as a precaution but she didn't seem seriously injured, according to the news wire. Police said the hole might have opened as a result of a water main breaking.
Sinkholes have frequented the news lately after several dramatic incidents, including one that swallowed and killed a Florida man from his bedroom while he slept. Neither his family nor rescue workers could find any sign of him. Florida's geology makes it especially at risk of sinkholes.
A sinkhole measuring wider than a city street swallowed three cars in Chicago this April after a water main installed in 1915 broke, possibly because of heavy rainfall, according to the Chicago Tribune.
A sinkhole in China collapsed entire buildings in China this year, and last year video emerged of a girl falling suddenly through the pavement as she walked down a street in northern China.
[ Related: Whirlpool in Latvian river swallows everything that enters ]
The front end of two cars also fell into a sinkhole near Montreal's Trudeau Airport in late March.
Tread carefully, cautious travelers. Alternatively, consider the possibility that recent terror over sinkholes amounts to little more than increased attention to a phenomenon that's always existed, as geologists speaking to the New York Times have said.
