Guatemalan Sinkhole

At the end of February a large sinkhole opened up in Zone 6 of Guatemala City. I'm sure you have heard of it, but if you haven't go here to read an article I was interviewed for concerning the details of the sinkhole. This post won't be about the details of the sinkhole but rather my involvement.

A couple weeks ago, just after the sinkhole opened, my curiosity brought me to visit the sinkhole site. You must understand that here in Guatemala you are given a lot of respect with a title and engineers are placed in a similar category as doctors. I figured that I could come to the control area and say I am an engineer from the states and I am looking for the engineer in charge of the site and then I would be able to learn what happened and see the hole for myself. There are always very interesting engineering lessons to be learned from these odd types of disasters.

The surrounding police and army quickly welcomed me and sent me from person to person working my way up the ladder of command. I was ushered in past barricades and into makeshift offices and introduced to brass from the army and city and government officials. I even had a meeting set up with the director of public works for Guatemala City to discuss how I may be of assistance.

There is a camera set on a boom stretching out into the crevice which is controlled remotely. I was able to look at the video and move the camera around zooming in on the problem areas at the bottom of the hole. I was utterly amazed at what kind of red carpet was rolled out for me simply because of my title.

The site itself was impressive, the size of the hole, the sounds of the water, the smells of the sewer. Over a week has passed since my initial meeting and yesterday I brought Jonathan to the site to see it and to check on how things were going. I was remembered and welcomed by name. Not much has changed. They still have not been able to do an assessment because there is still water falling into the hole from the storm drain collector pipes.

I just found the situation quite interesting and becomes another one of my stories labeled, "only in Guatemala..." Only in Guatemala can you show up at a disaster site as an unknown person on a motorcycle and be welcomed into the inner workings. Yesterday I was even able to enter passed all the blockades and come within a few meters of the hole to take pictures (the pic was stitched from several pics from being so close)