This made me wonder about skyscrapers in Florida. Low/light buildings such as three-story hotels, houses, and similar buildings can be built on pilings sunk into soil, but my understanding is that skyscrapers (“very tall” buildings) are anchored into bedrock for stability. How do they do this in Florida? Is the “bedrock” they anchor to something different from the limestone that seems to dissolve and form sinkholes so readily?
Is there the potential for a sinkhole to form directly beneath a large skyscraper (as opposed to a much shorter building) and cause its collapse?
Older skyscrapers used exactly the wooden pilings driven down into solid soil technique. Modern ones use steel-reinforced concrete in the same way. Here’s one that popped up high in a search.
Note that in addition to the piles, all skyscrapers would have drainage systems that would move water away so there wouldn’t be the kind of underground stream erosion that leads to sinkholes. These are universal requirements, done by engineers in every country.
A skyscraper is such a different animal from the standard house-on-a-slab in Florida that I’d be amazed if even the shoddiest builder could manage to put up a skyscraper that stood long enough to be taken out in a sinkhole. If the ground is that bad you wouldn’t build a skyscraper at all. Like in Pisa.
Two kinds of sinkholes (thus far that I know): 1) a cave/cavity in limestone whose ceiling has day-lighted and collapsed, and 2) the more unusual erosion hole wherein a very sudden change in groundwater level/movement causes a movement of loose material (sand/clay) deep underground resulting in cratering (or a “glory hole” in mining parlance), or simply causes the surface soil to liquefy.
The first can be detected and avoided easily enough through foundation drilling and testing. The second one is more subtle and harder to predict.
I want to see the video! Over a billion and half people and no one recorded it? Did it happen that fast? Get with it China and next time build the buildings closer together because a domino effect video would be so cool.
I was going to add a caveat that some building in some country could be shoddily enough constructed, and China is the likeliest place today. Not surprised that a building there fell down.
But while there are similarities, that’s not falling into a sinkhole. It is an example of Why not more “leaning” buildings?, in which it was an example. Tall leaning buildings fall over, not sink downward.
Please don’t even think of bringing up 9/11 unless “leaning” has a wholly different meaning in the language of your planet. And I’ll require proof of birth.
I believe it fell overnight. Originally I thought it was a photoshop or fake story (which I think the Spain one where they supposedly left out the elevators–I call bullshit) but I have found multiple sites that reference this fuckup and they all have different pictures, etc. But never have found a video. I think a video (especially a domino one) would be awesome.
This example is the closest I think to a tall building falling down I know of. I don’t think sinkholes, in the way it was used by the OP, would ever bring a tall building down as they aren’t built like houses, etc.
