by Lydia Warren Daily Mail
Extraordinary new photographs today revealed the massive sinkhole that opened up beneath a family’s home and swallowed a 37-year-old man.
Jeff Bush is presumed dead after he was sucked into the 30-foot-wide, 60-foot-deep hole late on Thursday at his home in Seffner, Florida.
On Tuesday, workers began filling the sinkhole with crushed rocks, after authorities conceded they may never find his body.
The images, which reveal the size of the hole for the first time, come as a second sinkhole has appeared just streets away. This sinkhole, which is 12-feet round, three-feet deep around the edge and five-feet deep in the center, opened beneath a fence on Monday, straddling two properties.
But it does not pose immediate danger, Hillsborough County spokesman Willie Puz said, and it did not cause any injuries or structural damage to the homes around it, but buckled the fence.
Families in the neighbourhood said they were leaving to stay at hotels and Laurie Goldstein, who lives across the street from the sinkhole, said she will have her home inspected for other sinkholes.
‘Is it too close for comfort having it across the street? Yeah. Is my house gonna sink? Yeah it’s very, it’s scary,’ she told WFLA.
But others were less worried: Ana Marie Serna, who owns one of the properties, said she was not concerned about the hole.
‘For me, no is strange because… the hole is little,’ she said.
Puz said the latest sinkhole appears to be unrelated to the one that opened last Thursday.
‘It is not geologically connected,’ Puz said.
Bush disappeared into the hole that opened up under his bedroom on Thursday night in a scene his brother, Jeremy Bush, likened to a horror movie.
The other occupants of the house, which is owned by the family of Jeremy Bush’s fiancee, had been preparing for bed when they heard a loud crash and Jeff Bush screaming.
Jeremy ran to help his brother but could only hear his screams. Firefighters arrived on the scene and pulled Jeremy away from the edge of the chasm.
On Monday, demolition crews returned to Bush’s home to demolish the rest of the house – revealing the massive hole for the first time – before efforts will begin to stabilize the sinkhole.
