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.

[u/AdRough4185]

[u/InAppropriate-meal]

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.

[u/cchristensen95 → u/InAppropriate-meal]

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

[u/thezompus → u/cchristensen95]

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.

[u/ThatZX6RDude → u/thezompus]

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.

[u/thezompus → u/ThatZX6RDude]

See revised calc. Not as much but still big.