In Croatian villages, the land has turned into "Swiss cheese"

In the Croatian countryside, shortly before the new year 2021, the earth began to behave very strangely. It would seem that out of nowhere in a garden in Mechenčani, a village 40 kilometers from the Croatian capital, Zagreb, an almost perfect round hole was formed about 30 meters wide and 15 meters deep.

A few weeks later, several dozen more such strange holes appeared on the ground in Mechenchan and the neighboring village of Boroevichi. According to IFL Science, in general, more than 100 craters were formed in two villages by March.

Fortunately, researchers have identified the basis of this geological mystery. At the end of last year, an earthquake of 6.4 magnitude occurred in the central part of Croatia. As a result of the earthquake, 7 people were killed and 26 were injured. The tremors were felt throughout Croatia, as well as in neighboring Bosnia and Serbia.

Craters are not the most frequent consequence of powerful seismic activities, but they happen, especially in areas with hidden underground cavities. According to the BBC, this happened after a devastating earthquake near the Italian city of L'Aquila in 2009: two craters immediately formed on the roads in the old part of the city.

In Croatia, due to the Dinaric karst processes, there are dozens of caves underground, three of which are more than 1000 meters deep. These deep caves are formed due to underground currents that slowly destroy poorly soluble bedrock, such as limestone. Over time, winding underground tunnels and caves can form.

Probably, the earthquake that occurred in Croatia literally destroyed the "ceilings" of these underground caves, creating dozens of sinkholes in the ground.

"Even without earthquakes, the earth would have collapsed over such voids and depressions would have formed, as it sometimes happened in the past, but earthquakes accelerated and intensified these processes," writes the Croatian Geological Institute.