The mysterious sinkhole in Chile doubles its size in a week: "People fear that the earth will open under their feet"

The hole is amazingly symmetrical.

The huge and mysterious sinkhole discovered by a neighbor on Saturday, July 30 in

, in the northern region of

, continues to grow while also increasing concern and confusion about its origin, still unknown.

"It started at 25 meters and is now over 50," said

, the mayor of this Chilean town whose inhabitants, who fear that the earth will swallow them, demonstrated on Saturday raising black flags in protest.

But there, as hypnotic as this phenomenon is that in recent days has turned the eyes of the world to the desert north of Chile, there is a lesser-known story.

That threatening hole is the reflection of a social environment that includes a high unemployment rate, environmental pollution and health problems that affect

.

"There is a lot of pollution, we have many sick with silicosis. Boys and girls with autism and the pollution that covers all the roofs. They dried up our river and piped it up, killing all the wild flora and fauna to prioritize water for the work of the mining and agricultural," Zúñiga, mayor of Tierra Amarilla, a town where 20,000 people live, told this newspaper.

Zúñiga, 26, is a member of the Communist Party and became the youngest councilor in Chile at the age of 19.

He was also the youngest mayor in the country (he has been in office for two years).

"There is an artificial hill that takes away two hours of sun and the wind that blows. All the jobs are for people from outside the community, the buses and trucks destroy our streets and sidewalks. They pass in front of our houses and spill material . Stones and large rocks that fall. They do not take care of cleaning and nothing."

Corruption is not unknown in Tierra Amarilla, half an hour from the regional capital, Copiapó.

"A mayor who has already passed away was prosecuted for corruption for signing an agreement with this mining company, and he was dismissed. The next mayor was arrested for corruption. I had to be interim mayor at the age of 24 when the previous mayor was imprisoned. year, in the elections, I was elected".

The origin of the sinkhole

The National Geology Service of Chile is investigating the reasons for the appearance of the sinkhole, located just 600 meters from Tierra Amarilla.

But Zúñiga, the son and grandson of miners in a region and

, has a series of hypotheses about its origin.

"We believe that what happened is due to the fact that the mine intervened in the riverbed, drying underground water tables [water tables] and working inside them, until the ground collapsed due to the telluric movements that are made to exploit the mine and the vacuum that is generated under the ground.

. It will continue to grow until it generates perhaps an inverted cone", explains the mayor.

Zúñiga got his start in politics as a student leader, like the Chilean president,

.

When he talks about telluric movements, you have to understand what he is referring to.

"They, from the mine, thunder at 8:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. every day. The movement and the noise can be heard under our feet, our houses. They are getting louder, They are heard more and more."

Neither Zúñiga nor the inhabitants of Tierra Amarilla are against mining

.

They carry it in their blood, it is part of their most personal and intimate history.

But the mayor takes a dim view of the Canadian mining company Lundin Mining, with operations also in the US,

,

and

, as well as Chile.

"This mine was already exploited centuries ago by the native peoples, here was the first Inca foundation in Latin America. Lundin Mining has worked in violation of a series of regulations, very recently they were fined for the use of groundwater, but (the authorities) took more than 10 years to confirm that the groundwater has dried up. And they are not the only ones, we are surrounded by seven large mining companies," he denounces.

The mayor assures that "when working the minerals they meet the groundwater, they extract the water and take advantage of it for their work. They destroy the land, dry the groundwater, weaken the resistance and with the blasting the subsoil and our houses are destroyed."

In 1993 there was already a sinkhole

next to a populated sector: "They covered it with clearing and it came to nothing. An entire sector of the town was moved to another side, but a study was never done. And in 2013 another similar event occurred again type.

Zúñiga has not received a call from Boric so far, despite the generational and ideological closeness between the two, but today, Monday, he will meet in Santiago with the Mining Minister, Marcela Hernando, who will visit Tierra Amarilla on Wednesday.

"We are in a process of reforming the country, changing the Constitution to gain more autonomy. In Tierra Amarilla we have 130 years of history. Our grandparents and parents are miners from small-scale mining, with that we lived well, but these companies bought everything, we lost our sources of work. And nothing was done to get the new generations to join mining.

. Some young people have come to work thanks to a struggle of their own, and thanks to that We have had information," he says.

Why continue to live in such a dangerous place?

"We are not willing to leave, they were the ones who came, destroyed us and put us at risk. But people are afraid that the ground will open up under their feet."

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