Thirty-six vacationers ran for their lives this morning as their resort fell into a 60-foot-wide sinkhole in central Florida, about 10 minutes from Walt Disney World.
Guests at the Summer Bay Resort said they heard loud noises and windows cracking as three floors of the hotel slid into the 15-foot deep crater after midnight last night.
Summer Bay is described on its website as a luxury resort with condominiums, two-bedroom villas and vacation houses in addition to standard rooms.
It has, or rather had, a clubhouse, atrium, hot tubs and a poolside tiki bar, and offered jet skiing, water skiing, canoeing and pontoon boating on a series of lakes scattered throughout the resort.
Sinkholes are an ongoing problem in Florida, which sits on a bed of porous limestone. They cause millions of dollars worth of damage when the bedrock dissolves.
In February, Jeff Bush of suburban Tampa was killed in his bed when his house slid into a sinkhole. His body was never recovered.
