Firefighters rescue dogs from sinkhole ledge
MEXICO CITY: Animal lovers have spurred on authorities to rescue two dogs trapped on a ledge on the side of a sinkhole on farmland in central Mexico dropping 15m to water.
The sinkhole’s crater has grown larger than a football field and begun swallowing a house.
The government of the central state of Puebla said yesterday it had managed to pull the dogs out of the sinkhole, after emotional requests from animal lovers to rescue them.
They had been trapped for about four days on a ledge on the sheer sides of the hole.
Because the loose soil at the edges keeps collapsing into the water at the bottom of the pit, for days it was considered too dangerous to try to rescue the animals.
But yesterday a firefighter descended into the pit, in part by using a ladder to steady the soil on the edge.
His colleagues were seen standing further back using ropes and a pulley system to haul up cages carrying the two dogs.
The state government distributed photos of the dogs, named Spay and Spike, looking alert and in the care of veterinarians.
The sinkhole is now more than 125m across in some places, and may be 45m at its deepest point. It is hard to tell, because water fills the crater.
The Mexican Government has sent in soldiers to keep people 600m away from the edge of the hole.
‘‘It’s a very hard time for us. It hurts, because this is all that we have,’’ said Magdalena Xalamigua Xopillacle, whose brick and cinderblock house was slowly collapsing into the sinkhole.
‘‘At times we feel sick from so much sadness.’’
Some residents believe the sinkhole is the result of excessive ground water extraction by factories or a water bottling plant in the area.
But the water at the bottom appears to have strong currents, and the national civil defence office said experts think it was caused by something like an underground river.
‘‘It is highly probable that the origin is associated with the presence of subterranean water flows,’’ the office said.