On Friday, January 8, 2021, a massive sinkhole opened in the hospital parking lot in Naples, Italy. The sinkhole swallowed at least three cars from the parking lot, but no one was hurt. 

A sinkhole is a hole in the ground caused by the layers underneath collapsing. There are two types of sinkholes that can occur. 

According to National Geographic, “One forms when the roof of a cave collapses and exposes the underground cavern. The second type forms when water dissolves the rock underneath the soil and creates an underground chasm. Without rock to support it, the soil layer collapses and creates a hole on the surface.”

Also, sinkholes can be man-made as well, but in Italy, this was not the case. The sinkhole was caused by heavy rains. All of the rain causes the ground to dissolve from being wet which causes a sinkhole to be formed. Luckily, the sinkhole happened in the parking lot when no one was there.

According to ABC News, “The local hospital district said the 20-meter-deep (66 feet), 2,000-square-meter (21,527-square-foot) sinkhole opened at dawn.” 

The sinkhole caused the hospital to lose power and water for a little while which caused the hospital to worry, but it came back on by a generator. The hospital was worried about the covid patients that were being taken care of. Some of the Covid patients were located based on the utilities that were not working. 

The hospital will reopen when the utilities are taken care of. The hospital is using backup systems, but the systems might stop working eventually. The hospital is working on fixing the damage caused by the sinkhole. 

Even though the sinkhole caused concerns for covid patients, the hospital took care of the problems and the hospital is still running under the circumstances.