[imagesource: Jose Castanares / AFP / Getty Images]

There is no shortage of natural disasters threatening our lives on this planet at the moment.

As our footprint widens, and our impact on the environment increases, natural disasters appear to occur with greater frequency.

Case in point: a massive sinkhole on a farm in central Mexico that is threatening to chow a nearby house and putting locals in danger.

The sinkhole in Santa María Zacatepec, Puebla state, was 60 metres in diameter and around 20 metres deep on Monday, according to the state governor Miguel Barbosa Huerta via CNN.

And it is only growing faster.

In fact, when it first appeared on Saturday, it was only five metres in diameter and grew in just a few hours, according to Beatriz Manrique, the environmental secretary for the Mexico region.

Image: USAToday

While nobody has yet been injured, the governor is urging local residents to stay as far away from the area as possible.

In fact, a family who lives a bit too close for comfort had to be evacuated.

The reason for the sinkhole might have something to do with overfarming:

“We think that it might be a combination of two factors: the softening of the field, the whole area was being cultivated, as well as the extraction of groundwater, which softens the subsoil,” said Manrique.

A sinkhole is caused by land giving up under the weight of what lies on top, which is no longer able to stay supported, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS):

This can happen for a number of reasons, including the erosion of rock beneath the land surface as groundwater passes through it, leaving a void that the surface collapses into.

Since the exact cause of this sinkhole remains speculation, officials from public bodies including the national water commission will carry out an investigation into what happened.

The investigative process includes soil studies and could take up to 30 days, so hopefully, answers will come quicker than the growth of the sinkhole.

Look at it go:

In January 2020, at least six people were killed when a massive sinkhole swallowed up a bus in northwestern China, and earlier this year, two people were fortunate to escape a sinkhole that swallowed their car in George.

Hopefully, this story ends without any loss of life.

[source:cnn]