Crews Give Up Serch for Man Who Fell Into a sinkhole

Give up the search for man who was swallowed by sinkhole

Rescue crews in Brandon, Florida  completed the search for a man who was swallowed by a sinkhole in his bedroom Friday.

It was at midnight Thursday night that family members heard a big bang and a scream from the room where the 36-year old Jeff Bush was asleep.

When his brother Jeremy Bush ran into the room the floor was gone and his brother and the whole interior were literally sunk into the earth .

River House

Rescuers have the whole weekend been vigorously searching for 36-year-old, but because the ground is still unstable and there is a risk that the hole grows ever larger, the search has been extremely difficult.

Saturday local time, it was decided to end the search and instead demolish the house.

- My sympathy goes to the family, friends and neighbors who have gone through this terrible tragedy. The operation is now changed because we can no longer carry out a rescue operation. Mayor Mike Merrill said at a news conference.

The government, in consultation with the family decided to seal off the property and demolish the house.

Neighboring houses evacuated

Sink hole has a depth of up to 20 meters and  when Jeremy Bush entered the room he saw only part of his brother's mattress sticking up from the depths.

Jeremy did everything he could to find his brother who had slipped into the hole but in the end even he had to be rescued by crews lest he, like Jef, be consumed by the gaping hole. 

Jeff bush is now presumed dead

sink holes:

Occur  when the landscape drops because the soil in the area has been undermined.

Areas with a lot of limestone in the soil are most at risk for sinkhole. The reason for this is that the limestone dissolves when the water runs down the stone layer. This leads to holes / caves underground.

As the cavity increases the risk of rising land mass above can fail and the crust sinks into the depths, revealing sink hole.