The pit is more than 100 feet (30 meters) across and may be six times as deep.
An enormous sinkhole wide enough to swallow the White House has opened up on a plot of mining land in Chile, according to Sernageomin, the country's National Service of Geology and Mining.
The gaping, 104-foot-wide hole appeared Saturday in a rural area outside the town of Tierra Amarilla, about 500 miles north of the capital city, Santiago. The hole appears to be about 656 feet deep, with a reservoir of water sloshing around the bottom, according to Vice. The hole opened on the site of the Alcaparrosa copper mine. According to Lundin Mining, the Canadian company that owns the mine, no injuries or damage have been reported. Sernageomin geologists are investigating the hole and have placed a 328-foot security perimeter around the site.
Sinkholes are pits that form over areas where water gathers underground without external drainage, causing the water to carve out subterranean caverns, Live Science previously reported. Sinkholes also form regularly near old and active mines, where large amounts of rock and ore have been extracted, several studies have shown. Sinkholes often form gradually over many years but can also open quite suddenly, taking cars, homes and streets down with them.
"Today it happened in a space that's an agricultural property, but our greatest fear now is that this could happen in a populated place, on a street, in a school," Zuñiga added.
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