The residents of Oorgaumpet in Kolar Gold Fields woke up on Monday morning to a massive sinkhole, more than 200-ft deep, which was formed overnight in their neighbourhood. Following two days of heavy rain lashing the town, the sinkhole appeared in a private layout being developed in the area.

The municipal administration of Robertsonpet suspected that the area, though over 5 km away from the mining region, might have been an excavation site during the exploration phase of establishment of the gold mine in the colonial era

.

R. Srikanth, Commissioner, City Municipal Council, Robertsonpet, said that the sinkhole was a minimum of over 200-ft deep and 10-ft wide. “Officials from Bharat Gold Mines Ltd. also visited the spot. BGML officials have been asked to check their archives to ascertain whether the area was at any time an excavation site,” he said, adding that heavy rain may have been the trigger for the sinkhole.

Municipal administration and the private land owner Aftab Hussein have been trying to fill up the gaping sinkhole with construction debris, clearly insufficient to fill it up, officials said. “We have fenced the sinkhole area to prevent accidents,” Mr. Srikanth said.

The municipal administration will now write to the State Mines and Geology Department to conduct a geological study of the area for its stability and suggest measures to improve it.

“The private layout had anyway not yet acquired necessary approvals from the planning department. We have asked the land owner to give up layout development on the land. We will not issue any plan sanctions,” Mr. Srikanth said.