Divya Ramesh | A shaky foundation

When I think of collapsing buildings, I think of a story from an Indian comic book in which a jealous minister builds a flimsy cardboard palace as part of a cruel ploy to overthrow his king.

But the caricatured world became reality when a 16-story building under construction in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, collapsed two Fridays ago and a new apartment under construction in Mumbai collapsed last Friday, both killing over 30 people.

A BBC News article attributes the Mumbai building collapse to shoddy construction practices “common” in poor communities. As Fox News notes with regard to Tanzania, “building collapses have [recently] become frequent in East African countries as some property developers bypass regulations to cut costs.”

It’s easy to corral the issue into a problem of developing countries and easy to say that Mumbai and Dar es Salaam are large population centers that compromise quality control in construction in a rush to meet housing demand. But, as falling buildings over the past week coincided with the newly released video of the 60-foot wide sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man and his home a month ago, I see that we have serious construction problems in this country as well.

While the United States might not have the same structural issues as other countries, like collapsing apartment buildings made of weak wood, our problem rests on where we choose to build. The building’s framework might be strong, but the land on which the building stands is sometimes not as reliable.

Just days after the Florida sinkhole disaster, a Pennsylvania family was evacuated as a yawning 20-foot sinkhole gorged on part of their yard. A nine-acre — and growing — sinkhole in Louisiana that is currently percolating butane gas has turned many residents into evacuees. In what I consider a glaring slip in safety, these homes passed inspection.

For me, thousands of red flags appear amidst visions of yellow bulldozers and cranes after this spate of sinkhole dislocations. But, according to geologists, sinkholes are common and have historically happened without the hype.

“I don’t believe we’re having any more today that we’ve had before,” said Randall Orndorff, director of the Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center at the United States Geological Survey. “They happen all the time.”

Maybe the hype is warranted, though — the statistics found on thesinkhole.org, a sinkhole enthusiast site that claims to document every sinkhole worldwide, are quite unnerving.

It’s true that some sinkholes are natural phenomena, with rain gradually eating away at “particularly susceptible underground rock like limestone or gypsium” to form hollow caverns that proceed to open up. However, man-made sinkholes happen in a more expedited fashion.

Large amounts of construction, in addition to increasingly acidic rain, in Florida has turned an unbroken bed of limestone into porous rock. Mining companies seeking brine explain the gaping hole in the Louisiana landscape.

While we must better monitor our mining, waste disposal and drilling practices to avoid the man-made sinkholes so common in developed countries, we cannot change that some land is susceptible to natural sinkhole formation. But we shouldn’t build in vulnerable regions and then subject those houses to only a cursory safety inspection, allowing them to pass when they’re at risk.

As Princeton freshman Lea Trusty, who’s from a New Orleans suburb, once mentioned as we discussed sinkholes on my train ride back home, “No one should have built anything there anyway. Louisiana’s not good for … housing … and it’s not just [sink]holes that make housing bad — it’s a state hit by hurricanes too.” In jest she added, “We’re always rebuilding.”

With sinkholes swallowing homes, cars and people in many places, her words extend beyond Louisiana. It would behoove places prone to natural sinkholes to limit future housing there for safety reasons. As my train seatmate noted, not much can be done about housing already in place because “home will always be home, safe or not.”

Given this, states should recommend rigid home safety checks and educate people at risk. As it continues to rain, rock will dissolve and new caverns will form and open up — it’s natural. We shouldn’t build new homes on what is destined to become a cavernous foundation. And before criticizing the flawed construction practices and safety inspections of other countries, we should alter our own.

Divya Ramesh is a College freshman from Princeton Junction, N.J. Her email address is divyaramesh20@gmail.com. You can follow her @DivyaRamesh11. “Through My Eyes” appears every Monday.

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