A geological fault caused a gigantic hole whose diameter has been growing in the state of Puebla, in central Mexico, according to the first investigations of the authorities.
“It is a matter of enormous risk. I tell the poblanos and the people of the region that we are going to be aware that there are no human tragedies. It is a geological fault that must be addressed with great care, with technique and with all the necessary prevention and we are doing it,”explained the governor of the state of Puebla, Miguel Barbosa, at a press conference on Monday.
THE SOCAVÓN IN PUEBLA CONTINUES TO GROW
For her part, the Puebla Secretary of the Environment, Beatriz Manrique, explained that the hole began to be created on Saturday, May 29, being no more than 16 feet in diameter, and in 24 hours it grew to almost 100 feet.
As detailed by Manrique, a few hours ago it already reached 197 feet in diameter and Twitter users shared videos in which it is seen that it continues to grow as part of the edges that fall to the bottom, where there is a large amount of water, are detached.
According to local media in Mexico, the depth of the sinkhole would be about 65 feet.
WHERE IS EL SOCAVÓN LOCATED
The detachment took place in a farmland in the Juan C. Bonilla municipality, just over 12 miles from Puebla capital, in an area where there are only a few small and humble houses of the people who work the crops.
The secretary explained that it is still too early to know the reasons for the creation of the sinkhole.
He mentioned that in the area there was a “jagüey” – well or ditch full of water – that was covered to locate farmland.
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“There may be a softening of the farmland and extraction of aquifers. And when the pressure of the water in the surface layer was greater than that of the soil, a variation and the weight on the earth’s crust was generated, which ended yielding,” he detailed.
Civil Protection of Puebla traveled to the area together with other authorities to make sure that no one approaches and risks are not taken.
“Faced with the formation of a sinkhole in the farmland of Santa María Zacatepec, in Juan C. Bonilla, Puebla Department of the Interior, through this coordination, urges the population NOT to approach the place in order to avoid accidents”, wrote Civil Protection of the state on Twitter.
For its part, Civil Protection Mexico shared in it an image of the work that is being carried out in the place and detailed that it is working to “mitigate the risk to the population”.
They added that a preventive evacuation of a house near the sinkhole was carried out and that a 1,640-foot security fence is maintained around the hole.