Australia: Divers explore 'football-pitch-sized' sinkhole in salvage mission [Videos]

A 'football-pitch-sized' sinkhole which opened up at a campsite in Queensland, Australia, has been explored by scuba divers. During the evening of 26 September, a 140m wide and 2.7m deep hole engulfed tents, vehicles and a mobile home as hundreds of campers were forced to flee, but no one was hurt.

However, disaster often brings opportunity and a group of divers from the Wolf Rock Dive have explored the hole at Inskip Point near Fraser Island, to examine the destruction. With help from towing companies, the workers attempted to salvage what they could but it has proved quite difficult.

One of the divers, Mitchell Neumann, told Mashable that although a caravan has been successfully retrieved, the other vehicles down there are lodged. "After the first exploratory dive all that was [visible] was the back metre of the caravan chassis. We believe the whole car is buried as it's still hooked to the van. All we managed to save was the back bar of the van and all the pieces of the van that had been ripped off," he said.

Diver Cheryl Maughan posted this with the accompanying video on YouTube: "The video really doesn't show you how difficult it is to get in and around all the trees and debris that surrounds the whole area. A definite entanglement issue especially when using surface supply breathing apparatus!"

However, Neumann added that the damage is reversible: "It shouldn't pose much of an environmental threat as it's all sealed up. The sand will be tightly packed around everything ... The hole will likely fill up with sand and within a year or two, the beach will be basically back to normal and not even the trees will be visible."