The Amazing Disappearing Lake

[JeeberD]

Lake disappears, baffling villagers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/odd_russia_lake_dc

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian village was left baffled Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight.

NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.

"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.

Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.

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Gotta love that last line! :D

[judicial clerk]

This happened somewhere in the south when some oil drillers punctured a salt mine.

[Mr. Wednesday]

That came up in an Engineering Disasters program on the History Channel a couple of nights ago, it looked pretty incredible. Although, they can only presume that the drillers punched through the salt mine... they weren't able to confirm it, obviously. That lake refilled (and is now considerably deeper where it got sucked underground); I wonder if the same thing will happen with this one?

[judicial clerk]

That is where I saw it too. It was pretty unbeleviable. barges and whole trees getting sucked down.

[dubb93]

hxxp://msnbc.msn.com/id/5191079/

WILDWOOD, Mo. - To folks around Wildwood, it is nothing but freaky: an entire 23-acre lake vanished in a matter of days, as if someone pulled the plug on a bathtub.

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Lake Chesterfield went down a sinkhole this week, leaving homeowners in this affluent St. Louis suburb wondering if their property values disappeared along with their lakeside views.

“It’s real creepy,” said Donna Ripp, who lives near what had been Lake Chesterfield. “That lake was 23 acres — no small lake. And to wake up one morning, drive by and it’s gone?”

What once was an oasis for waterfowl and sailboats was nothing but a muddy, cracked pit outlined by rotting fish.

The sight had 74-year-old George English scratching his head.

“It’s disheartening, getting out on your deck and seeing this,” he said as he stood next to wife, Betty, and the “lakeside” condominium they bought in 1996 for its view. “One day it’s a beautiful lake, and now, bingo, it’s gone.”

Some residents said they noticed that the lake, after being swelled by torrential rains weeks earlier, began falling last weekend. The Englishes said they noticed the drop-off Monday.

By Wednesday, the manmade lake — normally seven to 10 feet deep in spots — had been reduced to a mucky, stinky mess.

David Taylor, a geologist who inspected the lakebed Wednesday, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the sinkhole was formed when water eroded the limestone deep underground and created pockets in the rock. The sinkhole was “like a ticking time bomb.”

The lake and surrounding housing development date to the late 1980s. The development now includes more than 670 condominiums and houses, about one-tenth of them bordering the lake.

Because the lake is private property, the subdivision’s residents will have to cover the cost of fixing it, probably through special property assessments. George English expects it to cost $1,000 a household.

It is a price English said he is willing to pay. He just wants the unsightly pit gone, either by refilling it with water or dumping enormous amounts of dirt into it to create green space or usable land.

“I think it’ll come back again,” he said. “You have to hope they can fix it.”

A quick search brought this up. Anyone from around the St. Louis area know anything about this? It seems to have happened nearly a year ago. This is something I have never heard of.

[vex]

I remember reading that on FOFC.

[vex]

Dola

I thought I did, couldn't find it by searching.