The (Very) Strange Case of the Bayou Corne Sinkhole

The sinkhole now covers 25 acres of land... which used to be a lake

And now we come to a rapidly developing, current, and very bizarre story- the Bayou Corne Louisiana sinkhole.

Apparently, underneath this rather swampy swath of land, lies a massive, previously mined salt cavern system- unfortunately for nearby residents, the side of one of these chambers collapsed, draining an entire lake and swallowing up muddy land, along with trees and everything else that it feels like ingesting.

Don't believe me? Watch this video.

The sinkhole suffers some sort of further instability, ripping loose a massive chunk of tree and mud and utterly submerging it.

The risk of the entire area collapsing is apparently so severe that governor Jindal previously issued a state of emergency- some claim (although obviously I can't corroborate such a claim) that the nearby Dow chemical plant may have perhaps pumped some sort of material into the ground dubiously, causing structural degradation to the delicate salt caverns.

News Report on Tremors

In fact, the continuing collapse of the cavern system is apparently causing tremors and other instability miles away and has for the last 48 hours or so- which could either cause or predict a massive sliding of material down into the muddy abyss- if that happens, it's safe to say at least the residents of the town (if not the entire county) will evacuate.

Blog Dedicated to the Sinkhole

In fact, I took the liberty of looking up maps related to US salt deposits- if we assume that the influx of water and/or tremors and/or the salt deposits are continuous but porous or contain any form of tunnel systems, then if I am looking at this map correctly it could cause the land to collapse all the way from the eastern edge of Texas, to Alabama (which would be apocalyptic in the highest possible sense of the term.)

If that large orange blob destabilizes, it could be bye bye to everyone from Dallas to Montgomery.