Not worth a try

Are we still doing sinkholes?


"They've built a road on to the Banna park near the disturbance by the try-line, and after digging out a large section at the Brynmawr end have begun to fill it in with more than 2,000 tons of spark-proof stone. When the workers from the coal board saw how deep it went at over 70m their jaws just dropped and so did ours."

Is there a "lost ball" rule in rugby?

"Woman escapes car swallowed by Florida sinkhole"

A splendid video over at ABC News.

Don't forget, car parks are like governments... they might look strong and stable, but...

Sinkhole and cow news

Sent in by Derek R from CTV News:

Two people fell into a hole that opened up in the sidewalk outside a Kitchener department store Monday. It’s not clear what caused the hole to form outside the Sears store in Fairview Park Mall around 2 p.m.

Deanna Haddad was near the front of the store when she saw a woman try to walk into the building: “As she stepped in closer, she fell into a hole,” she said, “I don’t know exactly how deep the hole was, but she was up all the way up to her neck.”

There's your clue, right there.

From The Guardian:

A section of road in the centre of the Japanese city of Fukuoka has reopened just days after a sinkhole opened up outside a busy railway station and threatened to topple nearby buildings.

In a typical demonstration of Japanese workmanship and efficiency, workers toiled around the clocks and had practically filled in the section of road in just two days, according to local media. The road reopened to traffic and pedestrians early on Tuesday after local officials declared the repaired stretch safe.

Meanwhile, Up North:

Emergency planners are discussing when residents can return 'ome after a large sinkhole opened in North Yorkshire.

Twelve homes were evacuated on Wednesday after t'ole opened in t'back gardens of Magdalen's Road in Ripon.

Ian Spiers, emergency planning manager for Harrogate Borough Council, said Yorkshire Water were deciding how to reopen t'sewers so t'residents could return 'ome.

The worst kind of subsidence is an earthquake of course, among all the human misery there's this from MSN.com emailed in by James Higham:

Three New Zealand cows looked like they could use a little help on Monday after an earthquake triggered landslides all around them and left them stranded on a small island of grass.

Video taken by Newshub news service from a helicopter near the small town of Kaikoura shows two adult cattle and a calf stuck on a chunk of land in a paddock that had been ripped apart in Monday’s magnitude-7.8 quake. The patch of grass was surrounded by deep ravines of collapsed earth, trapping the animals where they stood.

Aptly named Japanese cities: Fukuoka

The man on the right of the sinkhole was overheard shouting down to his trapped companion: "Fuck!! You OK?"

From Inhabitat.com:

"London Bridge and East Croydon commuters face chaos on Southern Rail as sinkhole opens in Forest Hill"

Spotted by TBH in The Evening Standard.

Not much detail on how big or why, but the picture looks pretty unsettling, to say the least.

The Holy Trinity of blogging….

… a sinkhole, cow news and a car crashing into a house.

H/t, Dinero, from the BBC:

A dual carriageway is to remain shut after a huge sinkhole opened up as a result of a burst water main.

The northbound carriageway of the A249 between Key Street and Bobbing roundabouts, near Sittingbourne in Kent, has been closed for a week.

More than 1,000 homes and three schools on the Isle of Sheppey were affected by the burst main, with some without water for two days.

H/t James Higham, from The Des Moines Register:

Check out this video of a cow in Montana rolling a hay bale.

The National Agricultural Institute shared this video on their Facebook page last week and it has so far gained more than 10,000 likes.

From The Daily Mail:

It's a parking bay window! Vauxhall Corsa skids on ice and ends up embedded in someone's front room