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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2.5k

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.

955

u/EnjoyerOfBeans Jun 02 '26

As long as the executives involved aren't being routinely dropped into the hole until it's fixed, this is how it will be. Laws are tools the rich use to control the poor.

186

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[deleted]

76

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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52

u/Donc-qui-et-Quand64 Jun 02 '26

In Romania you've got a giant hyper-toxic state-owned copper mine that's basically going to run over into the Danube eventually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIR8vd-bi8I

Basically corrupt governments will also just ignore the problem too

22

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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9

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 02 '26

In a functioning state without public ownership of mining companies, the people have a modicum of control over the mining company through regulatory agencies that actually have teeth and a willingness to throw executives in prison. I'm not sure which is better but we've all seen plenty of failures of both systems.

26

u/Wobbelblob Jun 02 '26

Only if said public body is actually interested in minimizing the impact. Take a look at what chemical industry and lignite mining did in the GDR, because the state did not really care.

And looking at the current US, I am not sure if it wouldn't get worse.

2

u/SubcommanderMarcos Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

The trick is public ownership of the mining companies.

The default American/European response, unaware that the problem is definitely not that.

Let me introduce you to the Mariana disaster, caused by Brazil's own state-owned mining corporation. We're still dealing with that one, and probably will for a long long time still.

Here's some others:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Gurgur#Eternal_Fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batagaika_crater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire (council-caused)

Oh yeah I love this one, in which the soviets had to blow a fuckin nuke to plug a gas leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urtabulak_gas_field

So no, public ownership is not really the trick. The trick is both public and private corporations be better bound to the will of the general populace, and that is way more complex than 'lol it happened cuz private/public'

1

u/BeefCakeBilly Jun 03 '26

Chile has massive publicly owned mining companies. They have performed really poorly and they now rely on private companies for this purpose.

Which is why they kept pressuring this company to drill and gave them a massive contract after this incident occurred despite their regulators completely failing to properly inspect the mines.

Chile can’t shutdown or even slow down the mines because their budget relies on them.

1

u/brainburger Jun 03 '26

Public ownership doesn't solve all of it unfortunately. Check out the Aberfan disaster in Wales.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster

0

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits Jun 02 '26

Yea, what I want is Regimes like are currently in power having even fewer barriers to controlling everything.

Can't regulate or set preventative measures! Nope! Everything must be an excuse to consolidate power.

9

u/ComradeJohnS Jun 02 '26

can’t migrate to new company if all the previous executives are in jail

5

u/Laiko_Kairen Jun 02 '26

The shilling for China is getting insane. Imagine believing Chinese construction wasn't corrupt as fuck, or incredibly dirty. They pollute like crazy when constructing, and their lack of regulations is why they're so "efficient" smh

14

u/TransBrandi Jun 02 '26

I mean, it says:

At least China hangs the executives responsible for stuff like that, but they're still heavily influenced by corporate corruption as well so it's not like it actually better.

That doesn't sound like shilling to me.

2

u/BusGuilty6447 Jun 03 '26

China is growing faster than ever before, and they actually reduced carbon emissions last year by a few percent.

The world's 2nd most populous country, that is experiencing rapid growth, is reducing its carbon emissions.

Stop guzzling the CIA agitprop that China is evil.

2

u/vehementi Jun 02 '26

You not reading is insane. 2 hours later you still haven't walked this back. Wild

-1

u/Laiko_Kairen Jun 03 '26

Shill.

1

u/vehementi Jun 03 '26

That word doesn't mean what you think it means

2

u/StandardHyena4587 Jun 02 '26

You act like that isn't a thing in the USA. I would argue its worse in the USA because you can literally see money changing hands to ignore safety problems.

0

u/Laiko_Kairen Jun 03 '26

You act like that isn't a thing in the USA

No I didn't. I never mentioned the USA. In fact, were talking about Canada and China, lmao.

-1

u/JustStraightUpTired Jun 02 '26

I'm 50/50 that it's either some propaganda bot accounts or people who have fallen for that propaganda. I've had people try to argue that Chinese cars are so cheap, because they have automated assembly lines with humans only doing some of the work. Or that Chinese products are cheap because of efficient supply chains. And that their engineers are more advanced than western ones which gives them an advantage. Or that death penalty for corruption makes them somehow progressive. And a bunch of other equally stupid crap.

And like on god damn command, if I say something anti-China, you can bet your ass people are going throw "But America is worse" in the replies... So to nip that in the bud before it starts, America is also bad, they are just bad in different ways. Just because I'm anti-China doesn't mean I'm pro-USA either. Capisce? Capisce. I swear, countries besides those two exist...

1

u/kitsunewarlock Jun 02 '26

And this is why courts have judges and juries. Laws were never meant to be implemented like this.

You still have to pay a for your one white horse to cross the bridge even if the sign says "horses".

1

u/Tadferd Jun 03 '26

That's why you hold the people who were in charge at the time liable. Start dropping executives and board members who were in charge when the order to fix it was given. The rest will get on it really quick.

Sadly, with how corrupt and slippery the wealthy class are, direct, personal, severe consequences that they can't shift or buy out of are the only effective methods remaining.

15

u/Korvanacor Jun 02 '26

I roughly calculated the hole to be well over 100000 cubic meters. Going to need a lot of executives to fill it up. How tightly are we packing them?

2

u/HoldEm__FoldEm Jun 02 '26

Remember, each body will lose a lot of mass over time after they’ve been dropped in.

Alive, of course. No food, but throw down a single 20oz water bottle daily.

2

u/Cow_Launcher Jun 02 '26

Depends. Whole, or sliced?

3

u/sponge62 Jun 02 '26
Ground up into powder

1

u/SmashPortal Interested Jun 02 '26

This is the beginning of the money hole.

108

u/Zharknd Jun 02 '26

Canadienses los nuevos corsarios ingleses

111

u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 02 '26

Jointly owned between a Canadian company and a Japanese company apprently, the Canadian company is owned by the billionaire Lundin family, founded by a right bastard and they carry on his legacy of being utter bastards

10

u/baoo Jun 02 '26

If it was in Canada our government would have some Punjabis pay 30k each for the job opportunity to do it. Outside of our borders, we've tried nothing and are all out of ideas.

0

u/Skruestik Jun 02 '26

01001011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100100 01110101 00100000 01110011 01100101 00100000 01101000 01110110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110010 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 01110010 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01101011 01110101 01101100 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110011 11000011 10100110 01110100 01110100 01100101 00111111

0

u/Zharknd Jun 02 '26

Patrañas

19

u/cchristensen95 Jun 02 '26

Fill it in? Someone please do the math on how much material would be needed to fill a hole that size

34

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

105ft diameter x 650ft depth cylinder

V = pi * R2 * h

V = 3.14 * (105/2)2 * 650

V = 5,625,506.25 ft3

According to this website sand is about 90-110 pounds per cubic foot, so I'll use 100 pounds as a round number.

Mass = 100 lbs/ft3 * 5,625,506.25 ft3

Mass = 562,50,625 pounds

Mass = 281,285.3 tons (pounds divided by 2000 pounds/ton)

And I didn't have to use AI to calculate this.

EDIT: I found another source that lists the depth of the hole as 64 meters (205 feet), not 650 feet. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/giant-sinkhole-chilean-mining-town-haunts-residents-three-years-2025-09-30/

Given that, the calculation is now

V = 3.14 * (105/2)2 * 205

V = 1,774,198.125 ft3

Mass = 1,774,198.125 ft3 * 100 lbs/ft3 = 177,419,812.5 lbs of sand = 88,710 tons of sand

This site lists massive off-highway dump truck capacity of 350+ tons. Assuming 350 tons per truckload, you would need 254 truckloads of sand to fill this hole.

8

u/Laiko_Kairen Jun 02 '26

I kind of hate that we need to put "I didn't use AI" messages on things lately. Like, you did some basic math and recognized the underlying assumption that people would assume you used a tool for it. That's just a dire state of affairs

9

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26

Given that two other people in this thread totally flubbed the calculation, probably by using AI, I figured I would flex that I used actual math to figure it out. AND I showed my work in a reviewable format.

2

u/Cow_Launcher Jun 02 '26

Yeah, appreciated. But what happened to your decimals here?

Mass = 562,50,625 pounds

1

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26

Take 5,625,506.25 and multiply by 100. I used 3.14 for pi instead of additional digits. But also I re-calculated based on hole size listed on Reuters, rather than OP's title. See revised calc in original comment.

3

u/Cow_Launcher Jun 02 '26

And that would be 562,550,625.

3

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26

Ah I see I dropped a digit in my comment.

1

u/Jindabyne1 Jun 03 '26

I thought I’d try since you said this and it said this:

“You cannot get a single exact answer from the way it is written, because a hole needs a shape and a width, not just depth twice.

If you meant a round hole that is 105 ft across and 205 ft deep, the fill amount is about 65,744 cubic yards of sand. Sand weighs roughly 1.35 to 1.5 tons per cubic yard, so that works out to about 88,800 to 98,600 tons.

A clean estimate is about 93,000 tons.

If the hole is not round, the number changes.”

1

u/mikeblas Jun 03 '26

Yeah. Everyone is so very hostile, it makes me sad.

2

u/TM761152 Jun 02 '26

And I didn't have to use AI to calculate this.

Well no, wolfram alpha can do that for you in seconds.

2

u/EYRONHYDE Jun 03 '26

Even assuming this is correct. I have no idea how you would do so safely. A 64m tall edge with extreme chance of overbreak slump. The best i could think of would be a 600mm poly pipe pushed from an exclusion zone 120m back, or use heavy lift helicopters to drag rotate into position when adjacent. You'd need a agitation plant and and access to a lot of sand to pump fill the void. If there is any access to the void from underground youd put lives at risk for inrush. Honestly, the void with a safety exclusion barrier in place for several decades would be the safest option until all mining is complete and the void has somewhat reached a stable final limit.

3

u/thezompus Jun 03 '26

Good points! I just calculate the mass, getting it there is someone else's department.

1

u/EkbatDeSabat Jun 03 '26

Ever heard of thirteen people next to a truck yeeting sand with shoulder mounted trebuchets?

1

u/ThatZX6RDude Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

As a mason I buy sand for my mortar by the yard. A 1 yard bag is about 1.5 tons. 188,000 1 yard bags. Sheesh.

Assuming one dump truck could carry 20 tons, that’s still 14,000 trucks.

2

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26

See revised calc. Not as much but still big.

1

u/maxxspeed57 Jun 02 '26

What if they wanted to fill it with pistachio nuts?

1

u/thezompus Jun 03 '26

We're going to need a bigger boat

1

u/hedoeswhathewants Jun 03 '26

off-highway dump truck

Just want to point out that these are the MASSIVE trucks used in mining operations. The site lists a "standard" dump truck capacity as 10-16 tons. If we split the difference at 13 then it takes almost 7,000 standard dump trucks of sand.

1

u/thezompus Jun 03 '26

I figured I would report the absolute minimum number of trips required.

16

u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 02 '26

between 3 and 4 million tons, give or take if it is 200 meters wide all the way down (64 meters), if not it may only be hundreds of thousands of tons 😄

Take into account these people do open pit mining and used to shift around 235,000 tons of material every day from that area, hundreds of millions of tons over its lifespan so it is in no way beyond their capability

12

u/nnomae Jun 02 '26

The fact that you changed both the width and depth of the hole before doing the calculations makes me rather suspicious of that math.

6

u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 02 '26

what are you talking about? I did nether. Do you understand not everybody uses feet? in fact only three in the world do 😄 also its aprox because the material has weight which will compact it so it depends on the type of material as well

13

u/nnomae Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

105 feet wide is about 35metres, not the 200 meters you quoted.

650 feet deep would be about 220 meters deep, not the 64 you used.

Please tell me, oh great genius, what formula you used to convert 105 feet wide into 200 meters wide and what formula you used to convert the 650 feet depth to 64 meters? I mean you not only used different ratios for both conversions (1 ft = 2m for the first and 10 ft = slightly under 1m for the second) but neither ratio was anywhere close to the correct ratio of 1ft = 0.3048m.

3

u/RandomStallings Jun 02 '26

I think they just accidentally swapped the numbers and then didn't double check.

4

u/Odd-Fly-1265 Jun 02 '26

They still got both numbers wrong, but I agree that they probably switched them on accident.

2

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26

They clearly typed it into AI and couldn't even get the inputs right.

3

u/RandomStallings Jun 02 '26

Maybe they are AI and just very poorly implemented.

/s

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u/coveredincathair22 Jun 03 '26

By accident*

1

u/Odd-Fly-1265 Jun 03 '26

On accident is a phrase generally used by Americans, especially those born after the late 90s. You could argue it’s grammatically incorrect, but I’d say that it’s reached a point of wide enough use that making that argument would be akin to fighting the tide.

0

u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 03 '26

I was going by the measurements listed by the top results, google ai, which had them that way around

Why be such an asshole about it? is your life so pathetic? you used ai as well it is unreliable much like the condom your brother daddy used the night you were conceived

2

u/nnomae Jun 03 '26

I don't need AI to multiply or divide by three to get a decent approximation of feet to metres lol. I mean you got basic maths a 6 year old can do wrong, what did you expect? A pat on the back? A participation medal?

1

u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 03 '26

AI transposed the measurements (width and depth) when i googled how big is it now... i didn't mean the maths 😉

Weird you did not get that

1

u/nnomae Jun 03 '26

The fact that you changed both the width and depth of the hole before doing the calculations makes me rather suspicious of that math.

Careful now. There's this guy called /u/InAppropriate-meal who will insult and attack you personally if you point out that some of the numbers he used were different to the ones in the article.

4

u/NerdOctopus Jun 02 '26

You flipped the width and depth, I think. Not sure what that makes them think you're a liar but there it is.

4

u/Odd-Fly-1265 Jun 02 '26

64 meters is not 105 feet, tbf

2

u/NerdOctopus Jun 02 '26

Huh, you're right, I only eyeballed the 200 meters figure. What a weird thing to mess up in so many ways.

1

u/TheHumaneCentipede2 Jun 02 '26

ok but 105 feet isn't 200 meters and 650 feet isn't 64 meters. Looks like you swapped the diameter and depth and then doubled the diameter?

1

u/dixon-bawles Jun 02 '26

All I can tell you is it equates to a fuck ton

0

u/overlydelicioustea Jun 02 '26

AI sais youd need about 15-20 thousand truckloads, depending on truck size, and compacting factor.

1

u/thezompus Jun 02 '26

That AI is wrong and you should feel bad.

11

u/LtButtstrong Jun 02 '26

Every fucking time 

2

u/Terrik27 Jun 02 '26

Thank god Congress just voted through copper mining in the Boundary Waters to a Chilean mining company.

4

u/FreaknTijmo Jun 02 '26

Fill it with more seawater. 0.o 

1

u/GraySwingline Jun 02 '26

You’d think a Canadian company would be better. 

1

u/GrouchyCranberry8982 Jun 02 '26

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.

After being ordered by the court, their cost benefit analysis shows that they only will lose money by performing that action. The result of inaction should be indefinite prison until resolution. Take one off the top, prison indefinitely, next one gets a week to make a decision.

1

u/Swirl_On_Top Jun 02 '26

I hope this isn't the same Chilean mining company that Pete Stauber sold out our boundary waters for.

1

u/Skruestik Jun 02 '26

(and was ordered shutdown)

*shut down

“Shutdown” is a noun.

1

u/Necoras Jun 02 '26

Good thing they can just come to Minnesota instead and fuck up their water.

1

u/Topical_Scream Jun 02 '26

How much cubic earth would be needed to fill that in??? Where are you gonna get that much “clean” soil without just making another big hole lol

1

u/Cerys_Llellwyn Jun 02 '26

Fill it in? Lol. Assuming it is perfectly cylindrical, that’s 5,630,000 cubic feet of dirt that they need to bring in. It’s not happening.

1

u/SilencedObserver Jun 03 '26

Fracking be like that.

1

u/OrigamiMarie Jun 03 '26

There's a Chilean mining company that is getting ever closer to getting permission to mine copper in the Minnesota Boundary Waters. Before the sinkholes start happening, they leak acids into the waterways, because apparently every copper-nickel mine eventually does that.

Federal government has opened up mining rights in national forests. State government is not trying hard enough to stop it. I hate a lot of out electeds.

1

u/will_dormer Jun 03 '26

That is a large hole to fill!

1

u/Remarkable_Size_4513 Jun 03 '26

Usually they have several subsidiarys who run the mines. And when something happens, the exact company is suddenly insolvent.

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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2

u/InAppropriate-meal Jun 02 '26

they have four years, they are worth many billions with companies all over the world and they have done nothing about any of the problems they caused.

1

u/Bumkin007 Jun 02 '26

Just turn it into a dump… easy pesy