In a village in the town of Lubing, Fuquan City, Guizhou Province, 32 large sinkholes have suddenly appeared one after another. The most recent sinkhole emerged inside a villager’s home, with a depth of about 3 meters, causing shock among the residents.
According to a report by the Red Star News, Hu Yuzhen, a solitary elderly woman living in the Ba Xiangping group of Xiangping Village in Lubing Town, Fuquan City, resides in the middle of the group. Her husband passed away many years ago, and her son works in a nearby town. Hu Yuzhen is accustomed to rural life, raising some poultry and two pigs weighing 200 pounds each.
Due to the death of a relative living 20 kilometers away, Hu Yuzhen accompanied other relatives to attend the funeral. On the afternoon of December 9th around 3 p.m., they returned to Ba Xiangping group. Hu Yuzhen and her family described that upon returning home, Hu Yuzhen noticed that the kitchen’s cement floor had sunk, with several cracks appearing, and she also heard rumbling noises coming from underground, along with the sound of soil falling.
Hu Yuzhen stated that she was “frightened” at that moment, and her immediate reaction was to report this anomaly to the village’s geological monitoring officer, Chen Guowu.
Soon, news of the “cracks” appearing in Hu Yuzhen’s home spread throughout the village. Chen Guowu arrived with a group of people at Hu Yuzhen’s home, where they saw a large hole had formed in the kitchen. The hole had a diameter of about 2 meters and a depth of about 3 meters, located in the middle of the kitchen, shocking all who saw it.
This was already the 32nd hole to appear in Ba Xiangping. Since August of last year, sinkhole accidents have occurred one after another in Ba Xiangping. Once fertile fields suddenly started producing one large hole after another.
Ba Xiangping group is located in the northeast of Fuquan City, 23 kilometers from the city center, surrounded by mountains on all sides, with nearly 80 households and over 300 residents. About a hundred people reside in the village, mostly the elderly and children. Other villagers are mostly engaged in transportation and out-of-town work.
It was introduced that on August 3rd last year, the first “hole” appeared in the Ba Xiangping group, followed by the second hole in November. During the three months of May, June, and July after the onset of the rainy season in April this year, a large number of sinkholes suddenly appeared. These sinkholes mostly appeared in the fields, with one located in front of villager Qin Guangguo’s house. The appearance of the sinkhole inside Hu Yuzhen’s home on December 9th was truly shocking, causing a shift in the villagers’ mindset as they realized sinkholes could also occur in their homes.
The report mentions that nearby coal mine water seepage accidents are one of the inducements for the sinkholes. The Gan Tangbian coal mine and Hongda coal mine are both within a straight line distance of less than two kilometers from the Ba Xiangping group.
On December 19th, Zhu Zhongqing, the director of the office at Gan Tangbian coal mine, revealed that the coal mine’s development in the area has received strong support from government agencies.