Sinkhole Opens Under Resort Near Disney

Guests evacuate as three-story building collapses
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 12, 2013 12:04 PM CDT
Sinkhole Opens Under Resort Near Disney
Inspectors look over damage to buildings caused by a sinkhole 40 to 50 in diameter at the Summer Bay Resort, Monday, Aug. 12, 2013, in Clermont, Fla.   (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Get nervous, Sleeping Beauty: This could have been your house. A 60-foot sinkhole opened under a Florida resort last night, causing one three-story building to collapse and another to slowly sink into the ground, CNN reports. The Summer Bay Resort is about 10 miles away from Walt Disney World. One of the guests first noticed a "window blowing out" at about 10:30 last night. He told a security guard, who soon witnessed another window breaking.

The guard then ran through the resort telling guests to evacuate. "It was just a lot of popping noise, the ceiling was coming down. I had to run literally end to end of the building to get people out," the guard tells WFTV. "As you are running by, pieces of the building are falling down around you." One guest even had to break a window to evacuate his family. Ultimately all of the guests—reports vary between 20 and 35—made it out safely. Sinkholes have become something of a recurring problem in Florida; click here for more on the previous incidents. (More sinkhole stories.)

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