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This Article is From Jun 17, 2010

After Guatemala, now a sinkhole in China

Hunan:
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After the Sinkhole in Guatemala, now sinking land has created an enormous hole in front of an elementary school and swallowed an entire playground in Ningxiang county in China's Hunan province.

The sinkhole started to yield in mid-January, at first forming a hole twenty meters in diameter. Intense springtime rainfall has since accelerated the hole's expansion, which has, in turn, caused damage to area buildings.

According to Local officials many families living nearby have already been evacuated, with government subsidies provided.

At least eight additional sinkholes have formed in various Chinese regions in the past few weeks, sparking fears among residents that the holes could be an early indication of other seismic activity in the country.

The latest known sinkhole formed on June 4, in the middle of a freeway in Zhejiang Province on the nation's eastern coast. The sinkhole measured 20 feet deep and 27 feet wide.

Later the same day, about 300 miles west in Nanchang City, capital Jiangxi Province, a moving car was trapped when a hole about the size of the car suddenly opened up on a main road.

On June 3, four huge sinkholes opened up in Guangxi Province where a torrential storm was raging. According to Chinese state media reports, more than 600 villagers had to be evacuated because of them.

Three smaller holes were found between May 27 and May 30 in southwestern Sichuan Province, less than 80 miles from the Wenchuan epicenter of the deadly May 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed approximately 80,000 people.

In Yibin City about 260 miles from the earthquake's epicenter, 26 larger sinkholes have formed since April 27, 2010.

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