More than 11 years ago, a man in the USA disappeared without a trace after a sinkhole opened up under his house.
Jeffrey Bush, 37, had been asleep in bed in Seffner, Florida, on the night of February 28. 2013, when the ground opened up beneath him.
His brother Jeremy had heard a loud crash and ran into the room, where he was met by a huge 20ft wide and 20ft deep crater.
In a desperate bid to save his brother, Jeremy jumped into the sinkhole but the ground continued to cave in around him and he was pulled to safety.
Speaking at the time, Jeremy said: “The floor was still giving in and the dirt was still going down, but I didn’t care. I wanted to save my brother.
“But I just couldn’t do nothing.”
He added: “I could swear I heard him hollering my name to help him.”
Local law enforcement were quick to arrive at the scene, and engineers lowered a microphone into the hole to try and pick up signs of Jeffrey.
Local fire rescue said they saw no signs of life, and a second collapse ended up sucking the equipment into the hole.
The property was then sealed off due to it being “seriously unstable.”
Sinkholes are not uncommon in Florida due to the limestone in the state. This is a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, which can leave caverns below ground.
The risk of sinkholes is so great that home insurers are required by law to provide coverage against them.
Jeremy said an inspector had come to assess the property just a “couple of months” before the sinkhole opened up, and concluded there “was nothing wrong with the house.”
No sign has ever been found of Jeffrey’s body. According to Philip van Beynen, a University of South Florida environmental scientist who has studied sinkholes, it is likely that his body sunk into a 60-foot-tall water-filled void between the sinkhole and the bedrock.
He told USA Today that any attempts to retrieve his body would have been unwise as the ground around the hole was still unstable and could have collapsed even more.
“It would be extraordinarily difficult and incredibly expensive,” he said.
In the end, the sinkhole was filled in with gravel and the house was demolished.
But with no body, the Jeffrey’s family have never had the chance to say a proper goodbye to him, meaning there pain and suffering is endless, Jeremy said.
Two years after the tragedy, the sinkhole opened again, in an event officials described as “very rare.”
Related links:
Secret sinkhole in China reveals ancient hidden forest with possible ‘new species’, scientist say
