A serious incident occurred at the Summer Bay Resort in Clermont, near Disney World having partially fallen into a sinkhole, the latest such incident in the State. Over 100 people staying at the, resort complex in Florida but were safely evacuated when the ground gave way on Sunday night. By Monday morning, over 30% of the complex had collapsed into a sinkhole that was estimated to be up to 30m (100ft) in diameter. The problem and suspected cause is that the state of Florida straddles a system of limestone caverns that are subject to water erosion, causing them to cave in. This follows an incident in March where a sinkhole beneath a house in the suburbs of Tampa, completed swallowed a man who was in his bed and sadly, his body was never recovered. The state requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes but thankfully this not common in the UK and is not compulsory for insurers to provide this cover, even on cheap let property insurance. According to the BBC . other residents first reported untoward activity at about 22:30 on Sunday (02:30 GMT on Monday), when the villa’s windows began to blow, Richard Shanley, a security guard told the Associated Press. Staff subsequently decided to evacuate the villa. Mr Shanley said the building then began to sink, while banisters fell down as he climbed the stairs to warn residents by knocking on their doors.

A eresident who was staying locally, Amy Jedele, said: “You could hear the pops and the metal, the concrete and the glass breaking. You could see the ground falling away from the building where the building started leaning,” she told AP. “People were in shock to see a structure of that size just sink into the ground slowly.” The villa split into several parts over the next five hours and collapsed into the sinkhole.

Resort president Paul Caldwell told reporters “My heart sunk,”. No doubt there would’ve been injuries if they hadn’t gotten the building evacuated.”

Caldwell went on to say there had been no signs of a sinkhole developing before Sunday, and that the ground had undergone geological testing when it was built 15 years ago and been declared stable. Involvement of insurance companies is unknown at this stage but contractors with groundworkers liability insurance would be called in along with engineers and loss adjusters.