In late July of 2022 mine owners found a massive sinkhole in a mining town just north of Santiago, Chile. On August 7, just one week after the sinkhole was discovered, it doubled in size measuring 120 feet wide (the Washington Monument is only 55 feet wide). It is 656 feet deep. You could fit the Washington Monument in it with 100 feet clearance. Nobody knows where this sinkhole appeared from, although it could have been from uncommon amounts of rain. Right now the hole is stable, however, it is at high risk for further cracking. Because of the risk of further damage, the copper mine is now off limits until the Disaster Risk Management team runs technical studies. So far, the only thing detected in the sinkhole is water.

While the Chile sinkhole is certainly odd, there is a massive underwater sinkhole off the mainland of Belize. It is 1,043 feet across and 407 feet deep. This was formed during the ice age when sea levels were lower than they are today. This is an extremely interesting place to go scuba diving, however it is incredibly treacherous. Only experienced scuba divers should attempt this dive. 

The largest sinkhole is located in Guanxi, China measuring 2,054 feet long. It has halls, corridors, stone pillars and even cave pearls. There is a shaft at the bottom of the cave that connects it to the Panyang River, which researchers discovered by deploying down on just one rope. This sinkhole most likely collapsed because of an underground cavern that had been eroded by water. However, the process of eroding took nearly two million years.