Jess Battison
A farmer has died after a sinkhole appeared out of nowhere in Russia, with another sinkhole 400 miles away dubbed the 'Gates of Hell' eerily widening around the same time.
Tragically, a combine harvester was swallowed up by one of the two giant disaster pits which suddenly opened up in Siberia.
As explained by the British Geological Survey, sinkholes are typically saucer-shaped hollows which result from some kind of collapse or removal of an underlaying layer of rocks.
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They can appear rapidly and often without any warning and can be triggered by a variety of processes from gradual dissolution to the factor of human activity inducing them to form.
The harvester driver was reportedly killed aged 38 as the farm vehicle plunged into the whopping 35ft crater in Russkiy Melkhituy village, Irkutsk region.
There doesn’t seem to be a clear reason for why this massive sinkhole opened from nowhere in the Russian village.
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“The combine harvester is lying with its entire load, its full weight, on the cabin,” said an onlooker. “The hole is larger in diameter on the inside than on the outside.”
Four hundred miles away from this incident, a mega crater at a Russian ski resort had already earned the title of a ‘gate to hell’.
But pretty eerily, the sinkhole suddenly widened and deepened, close to multiple holiday homes.
It’s thought an earthquake may have caused the further sinking and it is also believed there were no casualties in this case.
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The original ‘gate to hell’ opened up back in December 2022 on top of an iron-ore mine. And before this new collapse, it was already a massive 50 metres (165ft) wide and 180 metres (600ft) deep.
For those more interested in the spookier, darker things, it had already become a tourist attraction for people to be able to ‘gaze into hell’ – and now it’s just got even closer.
Home to the whopper sinkhole, the Sheregesh ski resort is one of Russia’s most popular and is famous for holding an annual swimsuit skiing competition in spring.
Now that’s two very interesting things to be popular for – a ‘gate to hell’ and people skiing in their trunks.