Small Sinkhole Opens up in Central Tel Aviv

On Saturday, a small sinkhole opened up on the main Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, which is the latest one to have occurred in a number of similar incidents in central Israel in the last couple of months.

According to a statement issued by the police, there had been no injuries due to the opening of the sinkhole and traffic at the scene was being directed by the officers.

However, it remained unclear as to why the sinkhole had opened up.

The concern

Sinkholes have made headlines in recent months in central Israel, as they have appeared in a number of locations, which includes a major highway.

This has given rise to fears that these incidents could end up becoming more widespread across the country.

Three buildings had to be evacuated on Thursday until further notice due to concerns that the buildings could collapse.

This was after a construction site nearby had a cave-in in the city of Hod Hasharon in central Israel. Another incident had occurred in Hod Hasharon last Saturday morning.

A car had been pulled into a hole, with its driver making a narrow escape.

The sinkholes

Another two buildings in the city of Hod Hasharon had had an incident in November last year when a sinkhole had opened up in a parking spot between them.

All nearby buildings had had to be evacuated by emergency services who arrived at the scene and the hole had been assessed by municipal engineers for identifying its cause.

In the same month, two sinkholes had also made an appearance on the roads of the city of Tel Aviv. It was in September that the first sinkhole had opened up in Tel Aviv.

It had been a large one and had appeared on the city’s major Ayalon Highway, which had to be shut down for hours and the main exit had been closed down for about two weeks.

Likewise, a man had also been killed last summer after the collapse of the swimming pool he was in and he had been dragged into the sinkhole that had opened up underneath.

A sinkhole had also opened up in 2021 in Jerusalem in the parking lot of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center and had ended up swallowing a number of cars.

The reasons

Sinkholes also commonly occur around the Dead Sea, as they are mostly caused after underground salt deposits are left behind by receding saltwater.

Flash floods or rainwater later dissolve these deposits of salt and this causes the land to collapse. As for sinkholes in cities, experts believe that water flowing underground causes cavities, which eventually collapse.

This leads to sinkholes. The sinkholes in Tel Aviv had been blamed on construction that was happening nearby, which was believed to have weakened the infrastructure.

The fact that these sinkholes are becoming common have become a big concern. The Academy of the Hebrew language had announced last month that the chosen word for the year in 2022 had been ‘sinkhole’.