A manhole cover turned into a missile and killed one person after a subterranean explosion in Chicago in 1937.

Source: Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1937.

"Clean Water for the World," Insituform brochure about failing and neglected water and wastewater infrastructure. (PDF)

Source: Jayne Bringer, Insituform Technologies.

Aerial of sewer break damage in Seattle, Washington, 1957. The Ravenna Trunk Sewer line had been built in 1909-1910 and was one of the first sewer tunnels built with the aid of compressed air. The original contractor on the project gave up because of the quicksand prevelant in the area, and it was this quicksand that contributed to the underground cave-in. The disaster began on November 11, 1957, and caused extensive damage to Ravenna Boulevard. Repairs were not completed until October 20, 1959. This photo looks northwest along NE Ravenna Boulevard. (Caption information from: "Seattle's Catastrophic Ravenna Cave-In," by Roy W. Morse.)

Source: Used with permission of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry.

Workmen at top of hole caused by sewer break, Seattle, Washington, 1957. See aerial above.

Source: Used with permission of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry.

Sewer cave-in in Seattle, Washington. Photo date unknown, probably the 1957 sewer break on Ravenna Boulevard (shown above).

Source: John Jurgens, Trenchless Resources International (TRI).

Source: John Jurgens, Trenchless Resources International (TRI).

Video and stills of a storm water overflow along I 35 W in the Minneapolis, MN, area on July 3, 1999 (see Sources).  Water shot up to heights exceeding 30 feet. A large diameter manhole cover was displaced by the pent-up head of the backed-up storm water in the storm drain.  The manhole cover (in effect) acted as a relief valve.

Photo sequence: 1) the overflow begins, 2) and expands, 3) water recedes, revealing a pickup truck that hit the blown manhole cover, 4) a second eruption begins, 5) a man (?) runs from the pickup toward the underpass.

Video of storm water overflow (wmv file - 4 mb)

Source:  Many internet postings, location from Douglas Kiesling, Weather Paparazzi. Laton Carr, E.I.T., of Pape-Dawson Engineers, Inc., Austin, TX, has provided evidence corroborating the date and location. If you have more details of the incident, please contact us.

Massive Sinkhole in Sterling Heights, Michigan
August 22, 2004

A large sinkhole opened up in the early morning on August 22, 2004, in Sterling Heights, Michigan, on 15 Mile Road. The sinkhole, estimated to be 30 feet deep, 60 feet wide, and 160 feet long, was caused by a break in an 11-foot-diameter sewer interceptor.

The sewer line, which is more than 40 feet below ground, was installed in the late 1960s; problems with soil and sand conditions were encountered at the time. Sewer officials reported that another collapse occurred in 1978 about 2000 feet to the east, releasing millions of gallons of raw sewage; Macomb County is still paying the $25 million repair bill. Officials do not think the two collapses are related.

Staff from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department are at work creating a temporary bypass to carry the 30 to 60 million gallons a day of untreated sewage that the broken pipe normally conveys to a treatment plant. About 7 million gallons of sewage will be diverted to the Mount Clemens plant for treatment.

George Ellenwood, a spokesman for the department, said crews will begin stabilizing the site by driving steel plates and pumping cement to shore up the ground. The temporary line could take weeks to construct, and complete repairs may continue into next summer. The broken line is currently being kept open by a high-powered jet water system.

“It is not totally collapsed or blocked off,” deputy Macomb Public Works commissioner said. “We will be able to maintain service to customers in Macomb County.”

Some houses nearby were temporarily evacuated, and a telephone cable was damaged, disrupting service to 350 customers.

Source: Click on Detroit

Source: Sky News. See article here.

Source: Sky News. See article here.

Source: Sky News. See article here.

(Top photo) New York firefighters examine the scene where a sinkhole opened underneath a Ford Explorer in Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 27, 2006.

A woman driving her SUV along a Brooklyn street plunged into a cavernous sinkhole caused by water leaking from an underground main.

Nancy Batista, 46, of Florida, survived the terrifying 3:36 a.m. street collapse thanks to an 18-inch gas pipe that prevented her 1993 Ford Explorer from toppling farther into the 20-foot-deep hole at 73rd Street and Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge, officials said.

Batista exited the vehicle shortly thereafter and later went to a local hospital to be treated for shock, said Fire Department spokesman Brian Conlon. The car was removed by the early afternoon, said Andrew Troisi, a spokesman for the Office of Emergency Management.

Water from the main break rushed into the subway system beneath the road collapse, suspending service on the R subway line along Fourth Avenue between 36th and 95th streets.

The damage to Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge was probably more extensive than was visible, said Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

"It's unlikely that the only part of the roadway that was damaged was that car-shaped hole," he said, adding that water seeping from the 8-inch pipe could have been washing away dirt beneath the roadway for days.

Sources: New York Times, Newsday, WNBC

A 60-inch water main that broke in eastern Phoenix on October 3, 2006, causing an 8-foot sinkhole and flooding of businesses in a five-block area. The break occurred in east Phoenix, near 32nd Street and University (south of Sky Harbor Airport)

These stills are from a video of the damage by AZFamily.com. The video can be seen on the Phoenix news website of AZFamily.com. (Appears to no longer be available.)

A giant sinkhole opened up in southeast Portland on December 26, 2006, swallowing a city truck and triggering a natural gas leak.

The incident began Tuesday afternoon when the Portland Office of Transportation responded to a sewer backup on Southeast Oak Street between 18th and 19th avenues.

Crews were attempting to locate a manhole to investigate the problem when the pavement gave way at Southeast 16th and Oak. A city maintenance truck used as a high-pressure sewer cleaning machine fell into the hole, rupturing a gas line.

Two maintenance workers managed to crawl out of the hole and were transported to Legacy Emanuel Hospital. One of the workers reportedly suffered a broken leg.

Nearby homes and apartments were evacuated while the natural gas leak was sealed.

12/26/2006

Source: KOIN News 6

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala, February 2007 - A 330-foot-deep sinkhole killed three people, swallowed about a dozen homes, and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. Officials blamed the sinkhole on recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main.

When the pit appeared, it emitted foul odors, loud noises and tremors, shaking the surrounding ground. A rush of water could be heard from its depths, and authorities feared it could widen or others could open up.

The dead were identified as Irma and David Soyos, emergency spokesman Juan Carlos Bolanos said. Their bodies were found near the sinkhole, floating in a river of sewage. Their father, Domingo, was later found dead in the enormous fissure.

Authorities had apparently suspected something was wrong with the site before the sinkhole appeared.

“We knew, and the INSIVUMEH (the country’s seismology institute) had placed a seismic meter there,” said Alvaro Rodas, the director of social development for Guatemala City. “The city government had contracted a robotic camera system to go down there, but the disaster occurred first.”

Cristobal Colon, a spokesman for the municipal water authority, said the sewage main ruptured after becoming clogged. He said the city was aware of the blockage and the army had been considering a controlled explosion to clear the pipe, which carries both rainwater and sewage for much of the capital.

Source: Associated Press

Massive sinkhole swallows cars, shuts down water service in Eastlake

By Christine Frey and Brad Wong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Photos by Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

SEATTLE, Washington, May 2, 2007
Seattle emergency crews scrambled for hours Wednesday morning to shut down a broken water main that gushed water and mud into Portage Bay and caused a massive sinkhole near the University Bridge that swallowed two cars.

A minivan landed on a gas pipeline and both were on top of the broken main, making the accident more difficult to control, authorities said. They added that it could take up to 30 hours before the water system would be back to normal.

Seattle city officials said the water main was installed in 1912.

About 30 customers in Eastlake are without water. Most neighbors experienced low-water pressure and discolored water since the collapse. And morning street traffic was backed up to downtown and toward Northgate.

University Bridge was closed. Portage Bay Place East, which fronts the water, had collapsed, said Gregg Hirakawa, a city Department of Transportation spokesman. But crews checked the foundation of the bridge and it appeared to be strong.

The 10-foot-deep sinkhole was reported shortly after 7:30 a.m. and is about 20 feet wide, police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said. The area of the hole, directly under the south approach to the bridge, is a regular parking spot for Eastlake residents.

John Hutchins of Harbor Consulting Engineers, who performed an emergency inspection of the 24-inch main Wednesday morning, said that a tension break was from a crack 16 feet along the length of the cast iron pipe.

Police harbor officers moved boats and redirected marine traffic out of the area. Officers and firefighters also were concerned about possible natural gas leaks because of pipelines in the area.

The main that broke was next to another, much larger water pipe, but that pipe appears to be fine, said Colleen Schlonga of Seattle Public Utilities. "This was a very different situation than last week's break," said Mayor Greg Nickels, who was at the scene Wednesday morning. He said this break was not due to construction as was the break last week closer to downtown.

On April 25, a construction crew breaking up the street at Dexter Avenue North and Harrison Street for a repaving job hit a water main and flooded businesses on Lower Queen Anne and in the Denny Triangle. Between 1.3 million and 1.5 million gallons of water spilled onto streets.

The collapsed Eastlake road is the only one leading to many homes along Portage Bay.

Kay VanDyke, who lives in a floating home, said she called her boss to tell him she'd be late for work. Her friend, Pam Campbell, has lived on Portage Bay Place since 1981, and said she has never seen a spill or mudslide so large.

"We're all stuck down here. We can't get our cars out. It looks like it's going to be for a while," Campbell said.

Wendy Freitag, who also lives in a floating home on Portage Bay, said she noticed discolored water while running a bath Tuesday night. Freitag said she is concerned about emergency issues for many elderly residents of the area. But she and her husband have supplies to hunker down for awhile. "We live in a landslide area and you have to be prepared," she said.

A look inside a manhole located on a hill that is on the move, New Zealand.

The hill is in the process of slowly sliding along a "greasyback" (New Zealand term for permeable soils setting on top of a slanted clay layer). Water builds up on top of the slanted clay layer and acts as a lubricant of sorts between the layers. The top layer ends up sliding off the clay layer. This one has been slowly on the move for at least 3 years (in 2007). Houses, water lines, sewer lines, roads - all are on the slide. There are a couple of fault lines running thorugh the town as well just to shake things up a little bit every now and then. It's a town engineer's nightmare... and a consultant's dream.

The center of the bottom of the manhole (look for the washing machine foam at the bottom, also a black PE pipe is there) is about 8 inches off the center of the top. There are two places along the vertical profile of the manhole where the risers have displaced from the riser beneath, about 4 inches per displacement.

Source: Catherine Schladweiler, from a source in New Zealand.