Sinkholes are definitely more of a regular occurrence in Romania than I thought, although we normally don't tend to hear much about them. Thus, the Apuseni Mountains and the Padurea Craiului Mountains (where bauxite bodies were discovered to be close enough to the surface) present countless sinkholes. Most likely we don't hear about these particular ones, as they are not located in densely populated areas.
According to https://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/sinkhole-swallows-town-in-romania-state-of-emergency-declared-by-city-officials/, geological faults coupled with dangerous mining conditions have created a nightmare for the Romanian village of Ocna Mures. The entire village was sucked into a giant sinkhole and a state of emergency was declared for the region. The sinkhole covered near 1800 square meters. Roads and buildings were cracked in the area. Many people slept in the streets out of fear that their houses could collapse in the night and city officials feared that land subsidence could extend to other localities and called in experts to see if there is danger of the collapse spreading outside the region. (December 24, 2010)
Images of the destructive sinkhole in Ocna Mures, Romania
On June 7, 2013, according to http://strangesounds.org/2013/06/huge-sinkhole-swallows-rubbish-truck-in-craiova-romania-june-7-2013.html, a huge sinkhole swallowed a truck in Craiova, Romania.
The road’s collapse has been blamed on weeks of torrential rain. Thus, the hole opened up because the ground under the tarmac had been washed away by powerful underground floods.
Image of the swallowing sinkhole in Craiova, RomaniaWhat is Romania doing to prevent or alert people regarding sinkholes?
Unfortunately so far my research has been rather fruitless with respect to what measures Romanian authorities are taking regarding the prevention of sinkholes (which I don't particularly think we can focus on, as this is rather something outside of our control, but at least we can:
1. learn proper construction and development practices
2. not disturb natural water draining passages
3. not draw groundwater for irrigation and human consumption so much from aquifers
4. inform and educate the population about the dangers associated with land subsidence
I will update this blog if I find any further information about preventing measures or alerting people to these phenomena.
To sum up, sinkholes/land subsidence is not an isolated phenomenon and it does occur more often than we suspect.
Camelia, it was interesting to learn about that whole village in Ocna Mures being sucked into a sinkhole. I agree with you 100% that there is not a whole lot that can be done to prevent sinkholes. We would have to have the ability to control every natural hazard that exists. Every hazard has a cause-and -effect relationship with another hazard. To put it bluntly, every hazard is indirectly linked to another whether natural or human induced.
ReplyDeletewell said henry, landslides can be related to earthquakes, floods can be related to volcanic eruptions.... subsidence can be related to human groundwater usage.
DeleteI had no idea that Romania was as risk of subsidence. The once sinkhole you mentioned that covered 1800 meters and sucked up a whole village is particularly surprising. I think it is one of the unfortunate aspects of our news that we do not tend to hear about these kind of disasters simply because they do not occur in densely populated areas. I think if news about geological events were proliferated by the press (regardless of how remote the are) people would be better prepared to deal with them and also more likely to avoid hazard areas to start off with.
ReplyDeleteisnt it interesting how sinkholes are mostly everywhere?....that is one of the lessons I learned while preparing this class..
ReplyDeleteisnt it interesting how sinkholes are mostly everywhere?....that is one of the lessons I learned while preparing this class..
ReplyDelete