Residents concerned about widening N.S. sink hole that ‘swallowed’ tree

Selkirk said members of the club first noticed the sink hole around the end of July during a wedding reception. He said it continues to grow every day. And now, he says the Lions Club is concerned about their community centre, which is close to the park.

“It’s not stopping,” Selkirk told Global News. “We don’t know when it’s going to stop or where it’s going to stop or what else is going to go.”

Although maps of the area show the prospect that a sink hole could develop, geologists say there’s no way to know when one will open up or when it will stop growing.

“We can predict because of the kind of rock underneath that they will occur in the area, but where in the area is sort of similar to putting a thousand people in an open field with steel umbrellas in a lightning storm,” said geologist Bob Ryan. “You know it’s likely that one of them is going to get hit with lightning, but (you can’t tell) which person.”

The Oxford sink hole is the second large such hole to open up in Nova Scotia in less than a year. Last fall, a home in Falmouth started to fall into a sink hole in the middle of the night and had to be demolished.

It’s an incident that experts say was unusual.

“In my 40 odd years as a geologist, other than the house in Falmouth, any other structures that have been damaged have been small out buildings or barns or something,” said Ryan.

It’s unclear how much damage the sink hole in Oxford has caused or when the park will reopen.

Ryan said it will remain closed until it’s safe, but that he doesn’t know how long that will be.

“It could be in a month, could be in a week, could be in a year. We have no idea,” he said.

(Global News)

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Residents concerned about widening N.S. sink hole that ‘swallowed’ tree

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