Day: December 31, 2011

  • A Grim decision: There is ‘no question’ the ground is unstable in Allentown cemetery

    A Grim decision: There is ‘no question’ the ground is unstable in Allentown cemetery

    This is another image from Allentown, Pennsylvania, of a sinkhole developing near a cemetery in the town–an historic cemetery that may now have to have graves moved.

    A court order was secured in case Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim may need to make the grim decision on what to do with the graves. Land is being watched closely in case any shifting in soil occurs. Nearby homes have also been evacuated.

    The cemetery holds 20,000 graves–including some from the Civil War.

    “It’s a very volatile situation. The ground is unstable. There is no question it is moving,” said Everette Carr, president of the Union and West End Cemetery Association,

  • Allentown the vanishing?

    Allentown the vanishing?

    The land of the dead…sinking underneath the crust of the earth.. Living there in Allentown.. and all the land is giving out.

    Billy Joel had a hit song about Allentown decades ago.. a whole new tune may need to be written if rumors, which are rampant online, turn out to be true: Allentown is sinking?


    What we do know is that a sinkhole has developed in an historic cemetery in the city. Officials say a water main break is to blame–along with a year of saturation with constant rainstorms and flooding.


    But the more interesting part comes around when you search out, as one YouTube user did, just where this sinking is occurring: Directly next to the site of a major gas line explosion in 2010.

    So sayseth the rumor: The center of the town is sinking because of massive earth changes–changes which caused the gas line to rupture and now the ground to give way under the feet of Allentownians. 

    While the premise sounds far fetched it also raises eyebrows when you consider proximity of where the ground is buckling.. The focal point being the center of town.. next to where a gas line did actually rupture a year back.

    Sinkholes have been in the news for several years now. Dramatic photos of dark openings that look as though they go to the center of the earth itself have been published all across the world. 


    Watching this one closely.. I am after all relatively close to it, anyway.