(Newswire.net — February 7, 2016) — The first hole opened up in mid-December on a main highway in Harbor, southwest Oregon, and after a series of torrential rain, Russia Today reported. It had continued to widen and spread shutting down Highway 101.
50ft away from where the huge sinkhole had opened up, a landslide has ruined two lanes of the parallel highway.
The spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation, Jared Castle, told NBC news that this landslide is a monster.
“It’s just part of the battle of having the Oregon Coast Highway located where it’s at”, Spokesman Castle said.
“It’s a road built in a place where Mother Nature never intended for there to be a road”, he added.
The giant sinkhole measures 80ft in diameter. It is a super-sized sinkhole, the likes of which have not been seen in the last 20 years.
“This is a very unusual event and is a sinkhole of a magnitude that we don’t see but once every couple decades”, said the spokesman.
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting no vehicles were swallowed up or damaged by the enormous big hole and no injuries have been reported.
Highway 101 in Harbor, southwest Oregon, has been closed down with traffic being placed on a detour route.
The massive size of the sinkhole and the landslide can be seen in a spectacular drone footage on YouTube where the workers standing near the giant crater seem tiny in comparison to its size.
It will take at least a week to repair the highway and 65,000 cubic yards of material to fill in both holes, officials believe.
Sinkholes and landslides are a frequent occurence in that area due to its geographical location, but this one could well be for the Guinness Book of Records due to its frightening size. This natural phenomenon is not see very often.