Sink Holes Nextdoor?

For the second time in less than 10 months, residents of a Beltline condo complex were forced to evacuate after a sinkhole appeared in the parking lot to the rear of the building.

A fire department spokeswoman said the 13 residents who were evacuated wouldn’t be allowed back into the building Friday night and that emergency management officials were finding them accommodation.

“They won’t be getting back in tonight,” Deb Bergeson said. “We have to await tests and evaluations by city engineers that are going to determine whether this building is structurally sound or not.”

She said the sinkhole is about 3.5 meters wide and roughly three meters deep.

The condo complex is adjacent to a development under construction.

A resident of the condominium said he discovered the sinkhole when he returned home to find the wheel of a pickup truck had fallen into the hole, the opening of which he estimated to be about a metre wide.

The hole is very worrying for resident, said Tony Dossett, as it sits just meters away from where a sinkhole appeared in July behind the condominium complex in the 300 block of 13th Avenue S. W.

“The front of the vehicle is down in the hole and the vehicle looks like it’s been jacked up in the rear.”

Fire crews managed to get the truck out of the parkade. With two sinkholes, Dossett said he’s particularly concerned there’s a void underneath the building and is worried about the structural integrity of the building.

“Obviously there’s concern that there might be more sinkholes and this could ultimately lead to parts of the building itself actually crumbling,” Dossett said.

“There are structural cracks in the stairwells and stuff. It’s a concern.”

Dossett said the sinkhole from last year was filled in with concrete.

Friday evening’s incident also marks the second time in a week that a serious sinkhole has developed in the Beltline.

On April 24, a large sink-hole developed underneath 4th Street S. W between 10th and 11th Avenues.

The sinkhole was adjacent to a construction site that ceased work over the winter.

Such sites, city officials said at the time, are of particular concern because the shoring which holds back the walls of the pit is only supposed to be temporary.

One block of 4th Street is shut down indefinitely as crews pull up the sidewalk to try to pinpoint the cause of the sinkhole.

Source: Calgary Herald