Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:48:09 GMT
Guatemala City Sinkhole Location Found in Google Earth.
A giant sinkhole (over 300 feet deep) swallowed homes and killed at least two teenagers early Friday. The disaster has been reported in the news (see MSNBC story) and apparently was caused by a clogged sewer main. There were recently rains in the area, and residents in the area had been feeling tremors for weeks. The city had even planned investigations, but it was too late.
There were no details on the location in the news reports so far, but I noticed some aerial photos of the area. I went to see if I could find the location in Google Earth’s satellite photos. I was surprised, after only a few minutes of searching, to happen upon the actual location 
! Fortunately, the street configuration is pretty unique which helped me in the search. If you look at the terrain by tilting your view (use the middle mouse button or shift-down-arrow) you can see the location is at least 200 feet above a creek/river area running north-south just to the east.
[UPDATE 1930: GEC administrator ‘Ink Polaroid’ posted a special image overlay of the aerial photo to demonstrate how it matches the satellite photo in GE. As you zoom and tilt it fades in/out to show how it matches. Read his post for more details.
