The Guatemala Sinkhole: It's not a Sinkhole according to experts

Don't call the Guatemala sinkhole a sinkhole because it's not! It's a "piping feature," said by geologist, Sam Bonis.

The the 100-foot deep, 66-foot wide circular chasm that happened in Guatemala was formed after the country was hit by the Tropical storm Agatha. Also, the city's bad drainage has contributed to its formation.

According to Bonis, “Our recommendation was that this could happen again. When you have water flowing from storm water runoff, a sewage pipe, or any kind of strong flow, it eats away at the loose material. We don’t know how long it has to go on before it collapses. But once it starts collapsing, God help us.”

According to Wikipedia:

A sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, is a natural depression or hole in the surface topography caused by karst processes - the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks. Sinkholes may vary in size from less than 1 to 300 meters (3.3 to 980 ft) both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. They may be formed gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. These terms are often used interchangeably though many will distinguish between those features into which a surface stream flows and those which have no such input. Only the former would be described as sinks, swallow holes or swallets. A sinkhole on a glacier is termed a moulin or glacier mill.

As you can see in the video, the hole was larger than a street intersection, and as the reports say, the whole swallowed a three-story building and a house.

Back in 2007, a similar hole had opened in Guatemala, a 330-foot-deep sinkhole that had swallowed a dozen homes and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. Sam Bonis was part of a team of geologists who studied it.

What's worse?

This could happen again! "There is an excellent potential for this to happen again. It could happen almost anywhere in the city," added Bonis.

Is Manila Ready for an Earthquake? -- from CNN

A big NO would be my answer. I did not need to be an architect, a scientist, or a politician to answer that question. I may not have scientific calculations and reports as proof, but I am definitely sure Manila is not yet prepared for an earthquake like what happened to Haiti (7.0), Chile (8.8) and China (6.9).

Earthquakes hit without warnings, they damage and kill without exceptions, so why isn't Philippines getting ready for it when we've already seen the destruction it brought to Haiti, Chile and China recently? I sure would love to be a part of that preparation.

According to CNN, after what happened to Haiti, Chile and China, Philippines could be next. The Marikina fault is more or less ready to give in, it goes straight into the heart of Manila where 11 million people reside.

According to Mahar Lagmay, a geologist, a magnitude 7 earthquake is like detonating a thousand Nagasaki atom bombs, underneath the earth's surface along the trace of the Marikina Valley fault.

Let's face it, it's not only the Marikina Valley fault that's in danger of giving in when an earthquake hit the Philippines. There are hundreds or even thousands of houses that has cracks on its walls and floors, not to mention, the poor housing standards our country has.

Felino Palafox, one of our country's top architects, has submitted recommendations to the government on what has to be done to make Manila safer, but got no response... Now that the election draws nearer, could it really be that politics is more important than the safety of the lives of many Filipinos?

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake could probably wipe out Manila, but what if a much bigger earthquake hits us instead? What would be left of Manila then?

Watch the video below to know more!

Though what the Philippine's defense chief Norberto Gonzales said is true, "there's no 100 percent preparation for a major earthquake... despite all the preparations, there will be casualties", a preparation is all that we can do to minimize damages and casualties that a major earthquake can do.

Source: CNN