Tropical Storm Agatha which hit Guatemala during the weekend has resulted in more than 170 deaths, thousands of injured and tens of thousands with damaged or demolished homes.

Video of huge sink hole in Guatemala City after Tropical Storm Agatha

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The storm hit Guatemala just a day after a volcanic eruption which destroyed dozens of houses and led to the death of at least two people, devastated the impoverished Guatemala City.

The aftermath of the storm was best seen when a huge 100 feet (30 metre) sinkhole with a 60 feet (20 metre) diameter swallowed an apartment block along with the majority of an intersection.

Though no deaths have been reported due to the huge almost perfectly round hole some eye witnesses have said they had seen two men who were talking in a phone booth being sucked into the hole. But this is yet to be verified.

The Guatamalian government has since closed the street around the huge sinkhole until the government decides how to deal with the matter.

The storm which devastated Guatemala City came a day after a huge eruption of the Pacaya Volcano which led to the evacuation of 2000 people. The ash cloud which had already blanketed the streets, mixed with the floods causeing a thick black muddy solution which clogged up drains causing much more damage to the City.

A report on Tuesday warned that more sinkholes can occur in the area due to the excess pressure on the hydraulic drainage system caused by the floods combined with the inflow of sand from the Pacaya volcano eruption, in the City’s Western drainage collector.

Why did the sinkhole appear?

This is not the first time such an incident was seen in Guatemala as a similar disaster occurred in 2007 where a hole opened up after a sewage pipe broke resulting in the death of three people.

With the water and waste gushing out, it weakened and removed the earth underneath the surface of the ground and caused it to collapse.

The reason why such natural disasters occur in Guatemala City is mainly due to the land beneath the capital. The majority of the City is built on ash flows made up of loose particles like gravel which were formed due to volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago.

In certain places, in the country these ash flows can reach heights of 250 metres beneath ground.

When new volcanic eruptions, large deposits of water, earthquakes or other types of natural disasters occur, the land weakens, causing the sinkholes to occur as the gravel bellow the ground disappears.

Bonis, a geologist who worked for the Guatemalan government’s Instituto Geografico Nacional for sixteen years, said “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.”

“I’d hate to have to be in the government right now, there is an excellent potential for this to happen again. It could happen almost anywhere in the city.”

Meanwhile humanitarian aid from all over the world has been pouring into Guatemala who had been suffering from a very long drought which weakened the country’s economy and lowered the food stock.

It is reported that the President of Guatemala has asked for $80 million from the World Bank on Monday to help rebuild the Capital.

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