Courtesy of Nancy Loo / WGN

A sinkhole in Chicago at 96th and Houston.

A driver was hospitalized Thursday after a large sinkhole opened up in the middle of the street and swallowed three cars on Chicago's South Side, police said.

The injured man was driving when the road buckled and caved in at 9600 South Houston Avenue near the Chicago Skyway, Chicago Police Department spokesman Mike Sullivan told NBCChicago.com.

He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Sullivan said.

Two cars were inside the hole when fire crews arrived. A third car, which was parked, slid into the hole after first responders got to the scene, NBCChicago.com reported.

The sinkhole is the result of a water main that broke in the area and is gushing water, Tom LaPorte, a spokesman for the Water Department, told the Chicago Tribune.

LaPorte said intense rain could have aggravated the cast iron water main that dates back to 1915.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

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New video of a sinkhole that swallowed a Florida man has been released -- nearly five weeks after the dark pit opened up and killed the man as he slept.

The video offers the first glimpse of the sinkhole that officials estimate eventually grew to be 60 feet deep, according to NBC affiliate WFLA.com in Tampa. Officials recorded it with a small camera that was slipped into the unstable home.

It shows a bedroom floor that's almost entirely collapsed into the earth, even though its walls and ceiling remain intact.

The bottom of the pit that swalled Seffner, Fla., resident Jeff Bush on the night of Feb. 28 is not visible.

"I've been a basketcase the whole day, ever since I've seen it," Janelle Wheeler, who lived in the house with Bush, said after viewing the video. "It's just like, like you ripped off that Band-aid."

Her family is staying in a rental for the next few weeks, paid for by insurance, WFLA.com reported on Tuesday. 

Bush's remains were never found, and he was presumed dead.

Hillsborough County has condemned two other houses next to Bush's home due to their instability, WFLA said.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

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(AP Photo/Courtesy Golfmanna)

Golfers look into a sinkhole on March 8 that opened up under golfer Mark Mihal on the 14th hole of a golf course in Waterloo, Ill. Mihal was hoisted out safely with a rope.

ST. LOUIS - Suddenly being swallowed up by the earth on a golf course's fairway drove a wedge between Mark Mihal and a stellar round.

The 43-year-old mortgage broker was counting his blessings Tuesday and nursing a dislocated shoulder sustained four days earlier when he tumbled into an 18-foot deep sinkhole on the 14th hole of the Annbriar Golf Club near Waterloo, Ill., just southeast of St. Louis.

C.A. Schmidt / golfmanna.com via AP

Mark Mihal, 43, a mortgage broker, fell into a sinkhole during a golf outing on Friday.

Friends managed to hoist Mihal to safety with a rope after about 20 minutes. But the experience gave him quite a fright, particularly following the much-publicized recent death of a man in Florida who died when his bedroom fell into a sinkhole. That man's body hasn't been found.

"I feel lucky just to come out of it with a shoulder injury, falling that far and not knowing what I was going to hit," Mihal, from the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, told The Associated Press before heading off to learn whether he'll need surgery. "It was absolutely crazy."

Mihal said it was a real downer on what had been a fine outing.

With winter finally nearing an end, "it was the first day to get to play in a long time," he said. "So I wasn't expecting too much."

Golfing with buddies, Mihal was waiting to hit his third shot, some 100 yards from the pin on the par 5, when he noticed a bathtub-looking indentation about knee deep just behind him on the fairway. At just one over par for the round, the golfer with a 6 handicap was on a roll.

Mihal remarked about how awkward it would be to hit out of the odd depression, and then walked over to give it a closer look and took one step onto it.

"It didn't look unstable," he said. "And then I was gone. I was just freefalling. It felt like forever, but it was just a second or two, and I didn't know what I was going to hit. And all I saw was darkness."

Friends 'thought it was some crazy magic trick'
His golfing buddies didn't see him vanish into the earth but noticed he wasn't visible, figuring he had tripped and fallen out of sight down a hill. But one of them heard Mihal's moans and went to investigate.

"He just thought it was some crazy magic trick or something," Mihal said.

Hardly.

Getting panicky and knowing his shoulder "was busted," Mihal assessed his dilemma in pitch darkness as he rested on a mound of mud, wondering if the ground would give way more and send him deeper into the pit.

"I was looking around, clinging to the mud pile, trying to see if there was a way out," he said. "At that point, I started yelling, "I need a ladder and a rope, and you guys need to get me out of here."'

A ladder that was hustled to the scene was too short, and Mihal's damaged shoulder crimped his ability to climb.

"At some point, I said, `I need to get out of here. Now,"' Mihal recalled.

One of his golf partners, a real-estate agent, made his way into the hole, converted his sweater into a splint for Mihal and tied a rope around his friend, who was pulled to safety.

"I felt fortunate I didn't break both legs, or worse," Mihal said.

While disturbing, such sinkholes aren't uncommon in southwestern Illinois, where old underground mines frequently cause the earth to settle. In Mihal's case, the sinkhole's culprit was subsurface limestone that dissolves from acidic rainwater, snowmelt and carbon dioxide, eventually causing the ground to collapse, said Sam Panno, a senior geochemist with the Illinois State Geological Survey.

That region "is riddled with sinkholes," with as many as 15,000 recorded, Panno said.

The one Mihal survived has him debating whether returning to Annbriar is a long shot.

"It's a great course. I love the course," Mihal said, having played Annbriar a couple dozen times over the past decade. "But I would have a tough time probably walking down that hole again."

The 20-year-old course proclaims on its website that "each year new golfers are tested by our challenging 18 holes of golf."

There's no mention of its newest - and most challenging - hole.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

Launch slideshow

It seemed like any other Sunday for Doris Jenkins. The Bethlehem Township, Pa., resident got up bright and early to walk her dog. As soon as she stepped out of the house, however, she immediately saw something that would change the lives of her and her family forever.

"I came around the corner and said, 'Oh my God!'" said Jenkins. "My daughter's car was there. I woke her up and told her to get the car out of there!"

A sinkhole had opened up right in the driveway of her house on 2nd Street. Doris, her daughter Inga Jenkins and her granddaughter Claudia Jenkins were forced to evacuate their house.

"I wasn't thinking that this was how I was going to spend my Sunday afternoon," said Inga while in tears. "It's pretty upsetting to see your driveway start to fall into a hole."

Bethlehem Township Assistant Fire Chief Ron Ford told NBC10's Claudia Rivero that crews have been in the neighborhood all week repairing a break in a sewer line. Ford said it's unclear whether that work caused the sinkhole.

"We won't be sure how much damage it caused until we get the hole dug out and see where we are with the damage," said Ford.

More from NBCPhiladelphia.com

The Jenkins' home has cracks in the foundation and possible damage to the roof. Too dangerous for the family to live there, the home is the only one in the neighborhood that has been evacuated so far.

"We have to evacuate because of the fumes," said Claudia Jenkins.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

Launch slideshow

"My daughter and I are going to a hotel for two weeks," said Inga. "We'll see what happens."

No other homes have been affected at this time, authorities said.

There was another report of two small sinkholes that opened up earlier this week on 2nd Street.

NBC10 reported on several sinkholes in the Lehigh Valley area over the last year. Several dozen Allentown families were forced to find temporary housing after a sinkhole opened under their street. In 2011, 54 graves were threatened by approaching water from a sinkhole.

SEFFNER, Fla. — A  man who jumped into a chasm and tried in vain to save his brother from a catastrophic sinkhole said Monday he was frustrated that authorities haven’t done more to retrieve the body — even as another sinkhole opened up just a couple of miles away.

“They said it was dangerous, but you see this heavy equipment, you see that?” Jeremy Bush, choking back tears, asked reporters. “The house is still standing. The only reason the house fell is because they put the machines on it.”

He said that his parents are “going through hell right now.”

The first sinkhole opened last Thursday night and engulfed Jeff Bush, 36, who was in his bedroom. Jeremy Bush jumped in to save him and had to be rescued himself by sheriff’s deputies.

Authorities have said that the cavity is so unstable that nearby houses are unsafe, and that it is too dangerous to send a crew to recover the body.

On Monday, the long arm of an excavator parked in the street dug carefully through the remains of the house. Once crews finish demolishing the structure, authorities can get a better look at the hole and figure out how to stabilize and fill it.

William Puz, a spokesman for Hillsborough County, said a crew would try later Monday to retrieve a china cabinet that was valuable to the family. The crew planned either to wrap the cabinet and lift it out or to send a worker in a bucket to save individual pieces.

He said the crew hoped to finish demolition by the end of the day.

Working gingerly, heavy equipment began pulling apart the house over the weekend, scooping precious belongings onto the lawn. A Bible, family photos, a jewelry box and a pink teddy bear were among the items saved.

Workers penetrated the walls leading to the bedroom on Monday and got their first look at the sinkhole, which engineers estimate is 30 feet wide and 60 feet deep.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

Launch slideshow

Jeff Bush lived in the house, outside Tampa, with his girlfriend, their 2-year-old daughter and two other people. The others in the house were unharmed.

Jeremy Bush said that his mother was waking up every hour and crying in bed.

“No one ever wants to bury their kid before they go,” he said.

Meanwhile, county officials received more bad news late Monday afternoon as another sinkhole was discovered less than two miles away, NBC’s WFLA reported.

WFLA

Seen here, the second sinkhole in Seffner showed up about two miles away from the first deadly one. No one was injured.

The 10-feet deep sinkhole is located behind a home and officials say thus far there have been no injuries or structural damage.  

SEFFNER, Fla. -- Authorities hope to get a better look at a sinkhole that swallowed a man in his Florida home once demolition crews knock down the remaining walls of the house Monday and begin clearing away the debris.

Crews on Sunday razed more than half the home, managing to salvage some keepsakes for family members who lived there.

The opening of the sinkhole has been covered by the home, but once emergency officials and engineers can see inside it more clearly, they could begin planning how to deal with it. They also need to decide what will happen to the two homes on either side of the now-demolished house. Experts say the sinkhole has "compromised" those homes, but it's unclear whether steps can be taken to save them.

Jeremy Bush, 35, tried to save his brother, Jeff, when the earth opened up and swallowed him Thursday night.

On Sunday morning, Bush and relatives prayed with a pastor as the home — where he lived with his girlfriend, Rachel Wicker; their daughter, Hannah, 2; and others — was demolished and waited for firefighters to salvage anything possible from inside. The home was owned by Leland Wicker, Rachel's grandfather, since the 1970s.

The operator of the heavy equipment worked gingerly, first taking off a front wall. Family belongings were scooped onto the lawn gently in hopes of salvaging parts of the family's 40-year history in the home.

Pink teddy bear saved
As of Sunday afternoon — when demolition had stopped for the day and only a few walls remained — a Bible, family photos, a jewelry box and a pink teddy bear for Hannah were among the items saved. Firefighters also were able to pick out the purse of one of the women in the home.

Cheers went up from family, friends and neighbors each time something valuable was salvaged.

Wanda Carter, the daughter of Leland Wicker, cradled the large family Bible in her arms. She said her mother and father had stored baptism certificates, cards and photos between the pages of that Bible over the years.

"It means that God is still in control, and He knew we needed this for closure," she said, crying.

Carter said she spent from age 11 to 20 in the home, and she had to close her eyes as the home was knocked down.

"Thank you for all of the memories and life it gave us," she said.

'We just prayed with them'
The Rev. John Martin Bell of Shoals Baptist Church said he had been with the family all morning. "We just prayed with them," he said. He added that all five who lived in the house — Bush, Wicker, Hannah and two others ages 50 and 45 — were in need of support and prayers from the community.

Several generations of family members lived in the home at the time of the ground collapse, including Jeff Bush, the man now presumed dead.

Jeremy Bush tried to save his brother by jumping into the sinking dirt hole. He had to be pulled out of the still-shifting hole by a Hillsborough County Sheriff's deputy, who was visibly shaken when talking about the incident more than a day later.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / AP

A look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.

Launch slideshow

"I've never seen anything move so fast and do so much destruction," Deputy Douglas Duvall said.

The search for Jeff Bush, 37, was called off Saturday. He was in his bedroom Thursday night in Seffner — a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa — when the ground opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five others in the house at the time escape unharmed as the earth crumbled.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office is conducting the investigation. Detective Larry McKinnon said the sheriff's office and the county medical examiner cannot declare Bush dead if his body is still missing. Under Florida law, Bush's family must petition a court to declare him deceased.

"Based on the circumstances, he's presumed dead; however the official death certificate can only be issued by a judge and the family has to petition the court," McKinnon said.

The area around Seffner is known for sinkholes due to the geography of the terrain, but they are rarely deadly. No one — from longtime public safety officials to geologists — could remember an incident where a person was sucked into the earth without warning.

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This story was originally published on Mon Mar 4, 2013 6:25 AM EST

A large sinkhole has opened up near Sayre, Okla., and people in the region are wondering if it's related to a string of small earthquakes shaking the region.

The hole opened up a couple of days after one of the earthquakes about two weeks ago, the property caretaker told NBC station KFOR.

"Kind of spooky. You don't want to mess with it today," Jack Damron told KFOR.

See video and read the original story at KFOR.com

"Glad my house wasn't over it," neighbor Tony Bills told the station. 

KFOR reported that geologists are dubious of a connection between the quakes and the sinkhole. Scientists at the Oklahoma Geological Survey said the sinkhole could have been caused by drought conditions, the dissolving of salt or rock formations, or draining of an old coal mine.

Also, Sayre is across the state from the area where the quakes have been centered. That area, about 40 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, was struck on Nov. 5 by a magnitude 5.6 quake, the strongest ever recorded in the state. There had been a 4.7 quake earlier in the day. The big quake caused minor damage to buildings and roads in the area.

And the shaking has continued since then. There have been a string of small quakes over the past week; the strongest was a 3.7 on Thanksgiving. There was a 2.7 on Tuesday morning.

Houston-area residents have to wonder if they'll be next after a teen who was standing on a street corner was swallowed by a sinkhole that opened suddenly when an underground water main burst.

Giovanni Long, 16, told khou.com that he fell several feet and was under water for about 15 seconds as he tried to claw his way out of a hole 6 feet deep and 10 feet wide as he was walking in Kleinwood, a suburb northwest of downtown Houston.

"Everything beneath me crumbled," he told the website after the Monday afternoon incident. "I didn't know what to do."

"I was trying to dig my way out of the hole, but the ground kept breaking back into me," added Long, who finally got out with a few scratches on his back and a sprained ankle. "It's funny now that I think about it ... but when it happened, it was actually scary."

Why the 12-inch water line broke wasn't determined, but it's possible that recent rain after months of drought caused the ground to shift.

The drought itself caused daily water main breaks across Houston. Msnbc.com reported during the height of the drought last summer about some 700 daily reports coming in.