Israel National News interviewed Dr. Roni Kamai, an expert on ground vibrations and infrastructure who is a member of the Engineering Faculty at Ben Gurion University, following the discovery of a potentially deadly sinkhole that opened on the Ayalon Highway on Shabbat.
At the end of July of this year, a sinkhole that opened beneath a private swimming pool claimed the life of 32-year-old Klil Kimchi.
"This phenomenon definitely poses a danger to lives," Dr. Kamai said. "The sinkhole that opened yesterday was most probably due to an engineering project that upset the equilibrium in the subsoil, disrupting the flow of water underground. Such sinkholes, unlike naturally occurring ones, are due to human intervention and are entirely preventable."
Dr. Kamai stressed that, "Any reputable engineer is aware of this issue and in every construction project, a person must be employed whose speciality it is to ensure the stability of the structure and the surrounding area. In the Tel Aviv area, construction work is constantly ongoing, with tall and complex buildings being erected, and such events are rare," she added.
"Today we have technologies that allow us to check, without drilling, whether there are gaps in the subsoil, and I know that in this case, teams worked throughout the night in an effort to detect any additional problems. I hope that all the necessary tests will continue to be conducted," Dr. Kamai said. "It is vital to keep one's finger on the pulse."
Asked whether the size of the sinkhole indicates the time elapsed since the problem was created, Dr. Kamai replied that there is not necessarily any correlation between the two, and also noted that in areas where the soil is sandy, any disruption to the subsoil can cause problems to emerge unusually swiftly.
"In this case, the building thought to be responsible for the incident is very close to the Ayalon Highway," she added. "But Israel is a very crowded country, and much of it, especially in the Gush Dan region, is being built up at a tremendous pace. Furthermore, more building than ever is going on underground as in this part of the country, there is simply no above-ground space left."
Regarding the treatment of the sinkhole on the Ayalon Highway, which has been filled with concrete, she said: "Filling a hole with concrete is a band-aid that enables a road to be quickly reopened, and it does not treat the cause of the incident. I hope that the teams working in the field identified the cause of the collapse and treated it before filling the hole with concrete. Otherwise, if there is still a flow of water undeground, the subsoil will continue to drift and problems will reoccur."