Antonia dos Anjos, a resident who has lived in Buriticupu for 22 years, told Reuters he fears more sinkholes will soon appear: “There's this danger right in front of us, and nobody knows where this hole has been opening up underneath.”.
On social media, the city affirmed the need for “unity, dialogue and planning” to face the challenges caused by the large soil erosions, known in Brazil as “voçoroca”, a word of indigenous origins that means “to tear the earth”.
Several buildings in the city of Buriticupu, in the north eastern tip of the Brazilian Amazon, have already been destroyed with 1,200 people at risk of losing their homes to the widening abyss.
Buriticupu’s latest sinkholes are an escalation of a problem that has been ongoing for 30 years, as rains have slowly eroded soils made vulnerable by their sandy nature.
A city in Brazil has declared a state of emergency after a number of huge sinkholes opened up in recent weeks.
