Our little
neighborhood in the Sagene district of Oslo has been the subject of two newsworthy
events within the past several days, both rather disconcerting. On Tuesday
evening, a sinkhole about ten feet wide and fifty feet deep opened up in the
road in front of a housing development right around the corner from where we
live. Sinkholes seem to be a more common occurrence around the world now than they were before,
or perhaps it’s just that they make the news more often these days, especially
when they claim lives, as did the one in Florida in March 2013, when a house
fell into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up, taking the owner with it (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/florida-sinkhole_n_2788114.html).
The one in
our neighborhood did not result in any casualties, luckily; the police and fire
departments were on the scene immediately, and a geologist was called in for
consultation. As it stood on Wednesday morning, road crews were busy working on
it. Why it developed is a mystery, but it seems as though the combination of
steady rain and recent roadwork contributed to its formation.
Sinkholes, whether they are on land or in the water, are scarily fascinating, as this link clearly demonstrates: http://abcnews.go.com/International/photos/incredible-sinkholes-world-18651806/image-corvettes-collapse-giant-sinkhole-22481216.
They can also suck in whatever is near them in the space of seconds, as the following video depicts. In this case, the sinkhole devoured trees in
Assumption Parish, Louisiana http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcOPz_7KVQU&list=FL4rKLincZWuFolZVFChzj5g&feature=share.
Besides the
sinkhole, our neighborhood also experienced a chimney fire on Wednesday
evening. If you have never seen one, be glad that you haven’t. It’s a powerful
reminder of how fast a fire develops, especially on a windy evening. The
homeowners had clearly forgotten to clean their chimney before they lit a fire in their fireplace;
whatever creosote and ash buildup that remained from previous use had obviously
not been removed. I was watching TV in my living room when suddenly I noticed
that the sky outside had become foggy. Within seconds there was a blanket of
fog outside. And the fog was moving and blowing about, since Wednesday night
was quite windy. But then the fog got thicker and darker, and I knew that it
was smoke from a fire and not fog. I looked out the window and saw where the
smoke was coming from—the chimney of one of the houses right across the street
from where we live. As I watched, the smoke got even darker, billowing out of
the chimney, followed by fire that leapt up out of the chimney. At that point,
I ran to get my phone to call the fire department, but then I noticed that
there were people in the house. I could see them through the windows, and I
wasn’t sure if they knew their chimney was on fire. I decided instead to knock
on their door and let them know, but when I got there, there were already people
who had had the same idea, and who had called the fire department as well. The
firemen arrived very quickly, and set about putting out the fire. Two of them
made it onto the roof, and lowered down a device called a fire scrubber into
the chimney, which by this time was spitting out glowing embers of quite some
size. The fire scrubber removes the burning creosote by scraping the sidewalls
clean; this took some minutes but it worked.
One thing
is certain; had the roofs been made of wood, they would have caught fire. Luckily,
they were Mediterranean-style clay tile roofs. However, the houses they sit
atop are often old wooden houses that do burn rapidly and effectively if they
catch fire, unfortunately. Watching what transpired was a reminder of how
quickly accidents and disasters can happen. In the case of the sinkhole, no one
could have really predicted that it would have happened, but with the chimney
fire, it’s clear that it could have been prevented if the homeowners had
remembered to clean their chimney before using the fireplace.
