‘I caught a glimpse of hell in it’: Massive sinkhole threatens Louisiana town’s existence

[link to news.nationalpost.com]

BAYOU CORNE, La. – It was nearly 16 months ago that Dennis P. Landry and his wife, Pat, on a leisurely cruise in their Starcraft pontoon boat, first noticed a froth of bubbles issuing from the depths of Bayou Corne, an idyllic, cypress-draped stream that meanders through swampy southern Louisiana. They figured it was a leaky gas pipeline. So did everyone else.

Just over two months later, in the predawn blackness of Aug. 3, 2012, the earth opened up – a voracious maw 325 feet across and hundreds of feet deep, swallowing 100-foot trees, guzzling water from adjacent swamps and belching methane
from a thousand feet or more beneath the surface.

“I think I caught a glimpse of hell in it,” Landry said.

Since then, almost nothing here has been the same.