At around 5:35 AM on May 26, Yu Yongkang was irrigating his potato field when he heard a "bang" and watched a large pit collapse in the field. The sinkhole is located in the fields of Xiwugou Village, Dongguo Town, Tengzhou City, only about 80 meters from the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway.
　　The pit is 13 meters deep and 12.5 meters in diameter
　　On the morning of May 26, Yu Yongkang, a villager from Xiwugou Village, Dongguo Town, Tengzhou City, was irrigating his potatoes that were about to be harvested. "I was standing at the edge of the field when I heard a 'bang', and then I saw the ground collapse. I heard water sounds from the bottom of the pit, but I'm not very sure," said Yu Yongkang. "My wife was about two meters away from the sinkhole; she was quite scared, so I told her to stay away." After two more collapsing sounds, the sinkhole became silent. Yu Yongkang and his wife bravely approached and saw that the pit was bottomless. "It's very deep, I don't know how many meters. Now the diameter has increased, and a lot of the collapsed soil has filled it in, so it's not as deep."
　　Visually, the sinkhole is more than 80 meters from the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, and cracks about one meter deep have also appeared in the nearby wheat fields. On May 29, when the reporter visited, warning lines had been set up around the fields near the sinkhole, and dedicated personnel were on duty to persuade curious onlookers to leave. On-site staff said that the maximum diameter of the sinkhole reached 12.5 meters, the north-south diameter was 11.8 meters, and the depth was 13 meters. The diameter of the sinkhole has expanded somewhat compared to previous days.
　　Currently, the diameter of the sinkhole has not increased significantly. 　　Groundwater level decline causes land collapse
　　On May 31, a cable television pole on the roadside in Luozhuang Village, Dongguo Town, sank. On June 1, the reporter saw at the scene that the ground under the utility pole had shifted from the original ground level by more than half a meter, and deep pits had appeared around it. Worried about the safety of children and pedestrians, villagers cordoned off the dangerous area with red ropes. In March last year, a sinkhole also appeared in a farmland in Yangzhuang Village of the same town.
　　On June 1, staff from Dongguo Town said that after learning of the sinkhole in the farmland on May 26, the town immediately reported to the higher-level land department, set up warning lines at the scene, and arranged for dedicated personnel to be on duty 24 hours a day. Experts from the Lunan Geological Engineering Survey Institute and staff from the railway department also came to conduct surveys. A staff member of the town said that experts said Dongguo Town is located in the Jingquan water source area of Tengzhou, and the geological conditions in this area are relatively complex. Preliminary analysis suggests that the decline in groundwater levels due to dry weather and irrigation by local residents caused the upper soil to become loose, leading to the collapse. Experts gave preliminary advice to pour concrete at the bottom of the sinkhole, fill the middle, and cover the top with topsoil.