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A Florida man is presumed dead after being swallowed by a sinkhole that opened up in his bedroom late Thursday night.
A spokesperson for the Hillsborough County Fire Department told CNN that the 36-year-old man is presumed dead since their monitoring equipment could detect no signs of life.
When the fire department arrived the victim’s brother was trying to rescue him from the hole, but was unable to, reports the Tampa Bay Times. The other adults and a two-year-old child residing in the four-bedroom home were unharmed.
Although the opening of the sinkhole is only visible from in the house, engineers measured it as having a 100-foot diameter, reports CNN. The immediate neighborhood has been evacuated while experts assess the situation.
In December 2010, a cone-shaped sinkhole developed at at the Hillsborough County landfill. The hole was 175 feet in diameter as its widest on the floor. The hole remained relatively stable until March 2011, when the sidewalls of the hole resulted in further collapse, according to a site characterization report prepared by the SDII Global Corporation for the county.
“This sinkhole is a rock-collapse feature that formed as a result of roof failure over a pre-existing void in the Miocene Arcadia Formation,” says the report.
There have been reports of many other large sinkholes recently in China and Louisiana.
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