Mon Mar 25, 2024: On this day, March 25, 1947, there was an explosion at the Centralia No. 5 coal mine.

It is one of the big coal mining areas in America--for a couple of centuries now. I grew up in a small town there and the entire town and area were undermined and sink holes would appear unexpectedly. My grandfather was a coal miner and my father sold equipment used in coal mines, like roof bolts.

This is a limestone mine. I have been in a few in the region because some of them have refitted some shafts to accommodate cold storage facilities. It's kind of creepy driving around in them in a semi, it's very dark, only your headlights and whatever else you have and you can hear large machines racing around somewhere but you have no idea where they are. The only way to see the dock you back into is when they open the door so you can see it and the reflecting stripes around it.

There are several in IL, MO and KS.

😂 That’s what I heard, too!!!

Mind the sand trap!

A boon to the passing game!

is limestone. Mining it under the field probably didn't help, but the stuff is water soluble over time. A slow leak in a water pipe, possibly the field's sprinkler system, could have eaten enough of the rock between the field and the mine to cause this collapse.

They were just lucky it happened late enough for people to see it but early enough that no one was on that field.