Florida sinkhole swallows sleeping man alive - video

A FLORIDA man is presumed dead after he was "swallowed alive" by a massive sinkhole that opened up beneath the bedroom of his suburban house.

Jeff Bush, 36, was asleep in bed at his single-storey home near Tampa when the 100ft wide sinkhole opened up in his back yard and quickly spread beneath the house. He was heard screaming for his brother, Jeremy Bush (pictured above), shortly before he disappeared into the hole which is believed to be up to 50ft deep.

Rescue crews have been unable to ascertain if Bush is alive because the sinkhole beneath 240 Faithway Drive is still expanding, ABC News said. But listening devices and cameras inserted into the chasm suggest there are no signs of life.

Five adults and a two-year-old child were also in the house at the time of the collapse, but no one else was injured.

Jeremy Bush said he heard a loud crash at about 11pm last night and rushed to his brother's bedroom. "When he got there, there was no bedroom left," a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue service told the Tampa Bay Times. "There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up."

Janell Wheeler, who was also in the house when the sinkhole opened up, said: "It sounded like a car hit my house."

The Tampa Bay Times says it has "proven somewhat common" for sinkholes to open in Central Florida and swallow cars and houses, but loss of life is "not at all common".

Sinkholes usually form when surface sediments collapse into underground voids and cavities.
 

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