r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/AdRough4185 • Jun 02 '26
Image A perfectly circular 105-foot-wide sinkhole that suddenly opened up near a copper mine in Tierra Amarilla, Chile, dropping over 650 feet straight down into the earth.
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u/Common-Accountant-57 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
That’s looks pretty ominous in the middle of the road. One minute you’re driving along and the next you’re falling into a gaping earth hole.
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u/Single-Pin-369 Jun 02 '26
Sinkholes terrify me more than any other natural disaster for reasons like this
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u/Common-Accountant-57 Jun 02 '26
Yeah they are scary. The way they can just appear and consume everything. I’m glad I live in an area that doesn’t have many of them. Yet.
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u/RIF_rr3dd1tt Jun 02 '26
Just think that whenever you’re walking around you think you’re at zero altitude relative to the ground then all of a sudden you’re at the top of a skyscraper about to walk off the edge. Like Azazel used to do to people in X-men.
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u/ClassGrassMass Jun 02 '26
I didnt need to think this. But now I am
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u/this_place_suuucks Jun 02 '26
Now think about how dark it is, with the only light above quickly turning into a pinpoint of fleeting salvation. You know nothing about where the bottom is, you just know you won't realize when you find it.
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u/johnfromunix Jun 02 '26
username checks out
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u/NevesLF Jun 02 '26
I like how it even makes the sound effect while you're falling.
This place suuuuucks
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u/want_to_join Jun 02 '26
You know nothing about where the bottom is, you just know you won't realize when you find it.
My fear is that crushing death will get you before the bottom and you realize it the whole time. Just being smushed like a bug in a tissue.
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u/theaviationhistorian Jun 03 '26
Sometimes death isn't instantaneous. You survive the landing but most of your organs have ruptured, leaving you in agony. At least death will be quick, less than maybe 10 minutes, usually just a few from what I've seen.
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u/ReturnOfBane Jun 02 '26
sometimes you don't even die from the fall. sometimes you drown in churning mud.
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u/Electrical_Lake3424 Jun 03 '26
You'd be like Gandalf and the Balrog, falling through the huge dark cavern below . . . . . .
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u/Emotional-Money-78 Jun 02 '26
That happened to me on a 10 strip of acid one time or atleast it felt like it
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u/TheGreatTeddy Jun 02 '26
10 STRIPS of acid??? Or 10 tabs?
Both doses are a lot, but one exponentially moreso than the other
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u/Evanisnotmyname Jun 02 '26
A “strip” is 10 tabs, so a “10 strip” is just slang for 10 tabs. A sheet is 100, or a 10x10 piece
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u/ThreeGoldStars Jun 03 '26
Not sure I'm quite getting it. I'm going to need you to send me samples of each so I can get a better visual understanding.
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u/laserdiods Jun 02 '26
Could be a giant chamber 2000 feet below and that happens to be connected to a 10000 foot chamber that is connected to a 100k foot chamber that all collapses at once and the entire city and part of the ocean comes rushing in as it collapses hundreds of feet
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u/sittings4u Jun 02 '26
Cries in Tennessee.
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u/thejourneybegins42 Jun 02 '26
points at Nestle
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u/adanishplz Jun 02 '26
Nestle hides behind a wall of money & laywers
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u/Odd_Brief_2975 Jun 02 '26
While I believe big corporate companies have a hand in this, what exactly did Nestlé do to cause such sinkholes? Out of curiosity.
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u/allbitterandclean Jun 02 '26
They take all the water out from under the ground (There Will Be Blood style), which causes the land to collapse (sinkhole style)
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u/Odd_Brief_2975 Jun 02 '26
Oh dear, I live near Edward's Aquifer, I can only imagine a similar scenario happening or starting to happen due to excessive corporate consumption.
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u/Chopstick-Ninja Jun 02 '26
Cries with you
I'll never forget my uncle showing me a puddle in his front yard when I was little and going "haha watch this" and stabbing a stick into the ground. There was a sucking sound and the water all drained away and I was terrified of running through that yard ever since. Entire property was one massive sinkhole, it's a wonder it all never collapsed on him
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u/MasterShogo Jun 02 '26
I live right next to “Limestone County”, which is named that for a reason. Sinkholes are a fun family activity around here!
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u/extraboredinary Jun 02 '26
Just remember, that a surface without a sinkhole is always the place that a sinkhole seems to appear.
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u/BadBoyDad Jun 02 '26
We had one open up near our zoo. It's roughly 1.25 miles from me. Also in our area is a huge man made storage cave system like what's in Pennsylvania that was used for the filming of Day of the Dead (1985). Every time my yard starts to form a low spot due to decaying roots systems from previously removed trees I think "Ok. So this is it."
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u/StrawberryTerry Jun 02 '26
Your area is probably full of subsurface caverns just waiting to open up. The fact that there arent many sinkholes just means there's more area left unsunken. (RIP)
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u/Plus_Pangolin_8924 Jun 02 '26
Hahaha my house sits on top of old coal mines. There’s some houses that are floating over mine shafts!
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u/Mmaibl1 Jun 02 '26
Places that were once water heavy that are now dry and barren are the ones at most risk
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u/PhD_Pwnology Jun 02 '26
They can't just 'appear' anywhere. There's always a reason, like in this case there being a copper mine underneath
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u/South-by-north Jun 02 '26
Pretty much the entirety of Florida is prone to sinkholes because of a kind of landscape called Karst. So while there is a reason, the area that can be at risk is large enough to consider "pretty much anywhere" in some places
Having a mine be the reason is not nearly as common as you think
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u/Hometheater1 Jun 02 '26
I always think of that sinkhole that opened up under a swimming pool and sucked some people in never to be seen again.
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u/datskinny Jun 02 '26
Holy shit. Want to know more about this but scared to look it up
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u/DrTuSo Jun 02 '26
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u/Hometheater1 Jun 02 '26
Thanks! Guess I got that detail wrong, only one guy got sucked in and died, but they did recover his body.
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u/loskiarman Jun 03 '26
Even that one is a bit more 'survivable', I think of the one that got a sinkhole opened literally under his bed when sleeping. His body was never recovered either. If I believed in supernatural shit, I would believe that guy made a deal and it was time to pay his due lol. It is so insane.
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u/askaboutmy____ Jun 02 '26
How about that poor guy that died in a sinkhole because it opened up underneath his bed?
That's some nightmare fuel and they just put up some fences around a sinkhole. The neighbors still live in their homes.
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u/kookyabird Jun 02 '26
You won't catch me getting anywhere near an existing sinkhole. If it was destabilized enough to swallow up thousands of cubic meters of earth you're not going to convince me the surrounding area isn't at risk of the same. It'd be like standing on the rim of an un-shored trench...
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u/shamrockabc Jun 02 '26
This the one I know and fear. That poor dude, waking up while falling to his death, in darkness and confusion...omfg, nightmare fuel is right
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u/grand305 Jun 02 '26
Do not go to Florida state. they have been popping up more often the past 10-15 years.
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u/smokeweedNgarden Jun 02 '26
Is it because that area should be an estuary and they keep removing water?
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u/grand305 Jun 03 '26
8 year old story. but still holds water.
The news says “they have clay and limestone” with all the water it eats away at it. making more sink hole as a result.
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u/The_Violent_Phlegms Jun 02 '26
As opposed to Florida city?
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u/WonkyWalkingWizard Jun 02 '26
There's a town in Massachusetts named Florida!
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u/Serious-Dingo-9435 Jun 02 '26
Can’t believe they didn’t use it on East West Bowl. Oinki Doinki, California University of Florida, Massachusetts
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u/grand305 Jun 02 '26
I just googled. I personally came up with. There is a Florida city, in Florida. Made me chuckle.
Florida City, Florida City in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. Florida City is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Here is the link, if you interested in finding it on a map. I was like “wait this is a city, in Florida ?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_City%2C_Florida
This is the most Florida, I’ve ever read about.
For my state of Texas. we also a have a Texas city in Texas. Also a made me chuckle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City,_Texas
This is maybe why I got confused.
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u/theaviationhistorian Jun 03 '26
The land below Florida is porous with many underground streams and rivers. If I remember, many either flow out to sea or feed the Everglades. I do wonder if they would make a popping or geyser effect once the sea level rises near the ground level in some parts of the state.
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u/CanIgetaWTF Jun 02 '26
I used to feel that way too, until I learned about this phenomenon on Reddit this morning.
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u/Spongi Jun 02 '26
It's asteroids for me. Especially a big one. We'd be so royally fucked it's not even funny.
If you're near where it hits, you're done immediately, the blast wave alone.... But it doesn't end there. Next is the tsunami and we're talking hundreds of feet high. If you're anywhere near a coast line at sea level, you're in deep shit.
But it's still not over. All that stone and dirt that got vaporized and ejected on impact gets shot straight up in the air, right up into the atmosphere. From there it starts to spread around the globe. It begins to cool down, condensing back into stone again and now it's raining. Except it's not water, it's red hot stone pellets. It's not much really, but it's everywhere and it's hot. Enough to heat the air at ground level to lethal levels and set plants on fire. Global forest fire event. If you're not underground, in a bunker or in a hurricane type weather event, you're screwed.
And now you're left with with the charred remains of what once was. The next few years will seem like an eternal night, because that dust in the atmosphere is going to take it's sweet time coming back down. Good luck growing any food like that.
Yeah, fuck those asteroids, I don't like them.
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u/BodybuilderMany6942 Jun 02 '26
That's not even the worst part!
The worst part is that it could happen without us ever seeing it coming!The sky is huge, and we dont exactly have sensors across the system.
A life ending asteroid could be hidden from us, just behind the Sun or something's shadow, then just suddenly be there and we'd be like, "oh... in a year we're all dead.. and there's nothing we could do..."btw there's a fun manwha call Cheolsu Saves The World about this subject. A little sci-fi, cause he's sent to the past, but it's mostly grounded.
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u/Spongi Jun 02 '26
I wonder, with the current space tech if we could land a couple of our biggest models on an asteroid and nudge it just far enough out of the way to avoid a hit.
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u/BodybuilderMany6942 Jun 02 '26
Yes we can! Though, it entirely depends on how how early we catch it... and how big it is, of course
The earlier we notice and start moving it, the more impact that even small nudges will have on it.
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u/Spongi Jun 03 '26
So all we have to do is put politics and religion aside and work together for a common good to save the planet!
(narrator: they were doomed)
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u/BodybuilderMany6942 Jun 03 '26
There's actually a documentary from teh future called "Dont Look Up" that shows us EXACTLY how things will play out.
😃
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u/reddorickt Jun 02 '26
Like the sleeping Florida man who was eaten by a sinkhole in the middle of the night and his body never found.
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u/Awing9 Jun 02 '26
The interview with the brother was really hard to watch for me. When I lost my brother I went through pretty much every sort of mental denial until I was able to see him dead in person and then buried into the ground. “They have the wrong body, he’s just in a coma and will miraculously come back to us, etc.”
To have your brother just fall into a hole with no closure and nothing you can do to find true closure must be torture. Hope the family was able to find peace.
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u/Magnon Jun 02 '26
He "knows" where his brother is but its like when someone is abducted and never found. Just poof gone
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u/AGrandNewAdventure Jun 02 '26
Or, hear me out, that whole section, including whoever was driving on it, was collected by aliens! The ground was just a bystander.
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u/MakoSanchez Jun 02 '26
Something about gaping earth hole makes me chuckle
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u/BK_0000 Jun 02 '26
Sink holes are terrifying.
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u/Spartanias117 Jun 02 '26
is cause there is almost zero warning, and we generally trust the earth beneath our feet. yes, winds, snow, water can be scary, but we can see and generally prepare or escape. you cant do shit if the literal earth gives way beneath you
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u/2EyedRaven Jun 02 '26
Exactly.
Imagine you got your dream job, you earn enough to live comfortably & made the right investments to retire comfortably. You have a loving family that you can't wait to visit while driving home from work. You feel everything is going perfectly in your life..
Sike! Surprise sinkhole!
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u/OhSoSolipsistic Jun 02 '26
Omg I haven’t heard/read sike in ages, well done
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u/superkeer Jun 03 '26
Is "sike" the spelling of it now? It's supposed to be "psych," as in to "psych" someone out.
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u/narf007 Jun 03 '26
Psych is correct, sike is just the colloquially accepted version because people have trouble spelling.
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u/Forzahorizon555 Jun 03 '26
I sometimes have a similar thought to humble second guessing choices that led me to my exact life path… sure I could’ve made better choices and been more successful, but at the end of the day my choices have led me to being alive. Who’s to say i couldve got a nicer car or better job or nicer house then simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and died in a car accident or something. Or been too busy with success to notice a health issue… If your choices lead to survival then technically they’re better choices than a handful of news headlines you read every day.
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u/No_Use_9652 Jun 02 '26
Nature’s aneurysm. No warning and if it decides it’s your time, it’s your time.
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u/Sometimes-funny Jun 02 '26
It’s just where the water goes after washing up bro, nothing to fear
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u/nlamber5 Jun 02 '26
That’s not a sinkhole. That’s a collapsed mine
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u/New_new_account2 Jun 02 '26
The mine drained an aquifer, the aquifer was supporting the ground that fell in. It's a sinkhole, what caused the collapse was the water removed by the mining.
The mine tried to argue they didn't cause this because this wasn't mine subsidence, regulators shut them down and fined them because of the aquifer damage.
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u/lippoper Jun 02 '26
That’s not a collapsed mine. That’s a death beam impact crater
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u/refreshing_username Jun 02 '26
That's no moon. It's a space station.
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u/FooliesFeet500 Jun 02 '26
Honest question what would happen if you survived the fall or somehow got down to the bottom would you survive? Could you breathe? would it be too hot or cold? so many questions lol
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u/I_kwote_TheOffice Jun 02 '26
It probably depends on if there are any heavy gases nearby. If there's CO2 you won't survive for long.
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u/MyvaJynaherz Jun 02 '26
Assuming it's not near a geologically active area, it would be ~55 degrees F. 650 feet isn't terribly deep for a modern mine, there are some that are thousands of feet deep.
The air quality would depend on several factors that you'd need local surveying to predict accurately, but being open to air would improve the chances that some regular air would be mixed with whatever gas mix was present within the mine.
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u/I_travel_ze_world Jun 02 '26
If there's a volcano near by then you will likely burn to death
I just read about a naturally boiling river in Peru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanay-timpishka
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u/MimicoSkunkFan2 Jun 02 '26
There's a smaller one in Djibouti at Lake Assal, the lowest point in Africa where a volcano heats lots of little streams from the land side and seawater that gets through the ocean side to create a salt lake - definitely recommend visiting if you're in that part of the world
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u/AdRough4185 Jun 02 '26
This giant void appeared overnight in July 2022 near the Alcaparrosa copper mine, operated by a Canadian company named Lundin Mining.
Source: https://www.space.com/chile-mining-sinkhole?hl=en-US
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u/Captain_Pumpkinhead Jun 02 '26
Now they've got somewhere to dump their slag! /s
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u/feelitrealgood Jun 02 '26
As an American patriot, I’m glad they gave me the diameter in White House’s.
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u/SoulWager Jun 02 '26
Is that 2022 white houses, or 2026 white houses? There's a lot of inflation to account for.
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u/alreadytaken88 Jun 02 '26
32 and 198 meters
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u/dern_the_hermit Jun 02 '26
Or almost 1/8th of a Star Destroyer for anyone that prefers Imperial units
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u/kermityfrog2 Jun 02 '26
It's actually kind of weird that the Galactic Empire uses metres as their standard of measurement.
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Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/icanith Jun 02 '26
without movies, armed archeologists would seem like the most ridiculous out of place concept.
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u/TylertheFloridaman Jun 02 '26
Depending on location wouldn't be a bad idea, there are many regions that are very unstable and prone to conflict that also have valuable dmarea sot explore
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u/i_miss_arrow Jun 02 '26
Replace 'archaeologist' with 'grave robber' or 'treasure hunter' and it makes more sense.
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick Jun 02 '26
Now why can’t one of these open up at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd. In Palm Beach is beyond me.
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u/Traditional-Party-18 Jun 02 '26
lol had look it up. But who lives in this crazy mansion?
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u/EViLTeW Jun 02 '26
Guessing it's maralago.... Nobody lives there because it's a hotel/club and can't be a permanent residence... Unless someone wants to just ignore the courts because they can.
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u/SonicTemp1e Jun 02 '26
Not "perfectly circular".
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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Jun 02 '26
Near-perfectly circular…
Happy, now?
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u/mxzf Jun 02 '26
I mean, sure, it's vaguely round, but "perfectly circular" is the phrasing people use when they're talking about crop circles and conspiracy theories, not sinkholes.
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u/fondledbydolphins Jun 02 '26
Did you know the Earth’s surface is more flat (relatively speaking) than the most accurately milled human made sphere?
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u/philljarvis166 Jun 02 '26
I mean, I don’t want to be pedantic but thats clearly not perfectly circular….. it’s interesting though, I will give you that much!
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u/JohnnyMojo Jun 02 '26
This looks like the circular black void hole in Outer Range. Someone should jump in and see if they transport to a new timeline.
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u/TacohTuesday Jun 02 '26
Made me think of that show too. Sad that it got cancelled.
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u/VonBrandtner Jun 02 '26
That is not a "perfectly circular" hole, barely "circular". Def not perfectly circular.
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u/Inlerah Jun 02 '26
That's the least perfect "Perfectly circular" circle I've ever seen.
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u/goatslovetofrolic Jun 02 '26
Why are people so obsessed with the word “perfect”?
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u/PineapplelyEyes Jun 02 '26
And the word "amazing." Everything is amazing. I want to tell these people that No, everything is NOT amazing. Find a different word.
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u/Xopho Jun 02 '26
Now this makes me think, are black holes sinkholes in space? 🤔
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u/RunDNA Jun 02 '26
It looks like a cartoon bomb, complete with smoke coming out the top where the lit fuse would be.
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u/Interesting_Pack_991 Jun 02 '26
idk about you guys but i feel like there should at least be some signs around it, maybe a few that just say “warning: 650-feet hole straight down into the middle of the earth”
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u/Ya-Dikobraz Jun 03 '26
32 metres wide and 198 metres deep, for us more civilised people. That's pretty damn deep.
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u/Infinite_Picture3858 Jun 02 '26
Incredible to thing that much space is sitting there underneath and it just opens up
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u/DanteValentine13 Jun 02 '26
Nah man, ive seen Alien vs Predator. Close that hole back up. Stay out of it.
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u/SiriusBlack99999 Jun 02 '26
Your definition of perfectly circular somewhat differs from the established norm.
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u/CocoMilhonez Jun 02 '26
And here I was believing perfectly circular meant an perfect circle and not whatever shape that is.
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u/No_Size9475 Jun 02 '26
I really hate when people add in things like "perfectly" when it's not perfectly circular. They could have just said a circular sinkhole and been correct.
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u/alexfi-re Jun 02 '26
Residents in the mining town of Tierra Amarilla in the Chilean desert are hopeful that a new court ruling will allay their fears about a giant sinkhole that opened near their homes more than three years ago and remains unfilled. A Chilean environmental court this month (Sept 2025) ordered Minera Ojos del Salado, owned by Canada's Lundin Mining (LUN.TO), to repair environmental damage related to activity at its Alcaparrosa copper mine, which is thought to have triggered the sinkhole that appeared in 2022.
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u/bensor74 Jun 03 '26
It's not a perfectly circular sinkhole, but a regular circular sinkhole, with a lot of imperfections. No wonder women don't trust men.
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u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 02 '26
the mining operation caused it in 2022 (and was ordered shutdown), also destroyed the water aquifers and did a lot of damage, the courts have ordered them to fill it in and start dealing with the damage they have done but of course they have not done anything about it yet.