The ground is collapsing beneath Turkey — and many say it’s no coincidence.
Hundreds of enormous sinkholes, some as deep as skyscrapers, are ripping open across the country’s Konya Plain — swallowing farmland, roads, and everything in their path. Locals say the earth “roars like thunder” before it gives way.
“It feels like the end times,” said farmer Mehmet Arslan, who watched a 300-foot-wide hole consume part of his wheat field. “We pray, but every week the ground just keeps disappearing.”
The devastation has revived a haunting passage from Scripture.
In the Book of Numbers, the earth opens and swallows the rebellious — a divine punishment for defying God. And now, as sinkholes explode across central Turkey, many are wondering if history is repeating itself.
Hashtag campaigns like #GodIsOnTheMove and #EarthJudgment are surging across social media. “The Bible warned us,” one post read. “Now the ground is literally opening.”
Geologists say the truth is terrifying in its own right.
According to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, at least 648 massive sinkholes have formed in the Konya Plain — once the country’s breadbasket. Researchers at Konya Technical University uncovered 20 new ones this year alone, with nearly 1,900 sites already showing dangerous subsidence.
“This is not a natural disaster — it’s a man-made one,” warned hydrologist Dr. Emine Yılmaz. “We are draining the earth dry, and the ground is collapsing in protest.”
Farmers desperate to save their sugar beet and corn crops are pumping the last drops of groundwater from the shrinking aquifers — literally hollowing out the land beneath them.
NASA’s Earth Observatory confirmed that Turkey’s reservoirs hit their lowest levels in 15 years, with no recovery in sight.
Experts warn that Turkey’s disaster is a preview of what could happen in the United States.
“Everything we’re seeing in Konya — the drought, the overpumping, the ground caving in — is already starting here,” said Dr. Michael Foster of the U.S. Geological Survey. “Parts of Texas and Arizona are next.”
And the evidence is chilling.
In Upton County, Texas, a massive sinkhole the size of a football field opened this spring near an abandoned oil well. In Las Cruces, New Mexico, a 30-foot chasm swallowed two cars and forced families to flee their homes. Arizona’s Cochise County is sinking six inches every year, creating fissures that stretch for miles.
The U.S. Drought Monitor reports that parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia are already at “extreme” or “exceptional” drought levels — the highest on record.
“The warning signs are flashing red,” Foster said. “If groundwater pumping continues at this rate, we’re one bad drought away from our own Turkey-style collapse.”
In Turkey, entire villages are living in fear.
“When I hear a rumble at night, I don’t know if it’s an earthquake or the ground opening under my house,” said Fatma Güney, a mother of three from Karapınar. “We used to worry about rain. Now we pray for solid ground.”
For scientists, it’s a stark message to the rest of the world: what’s happening beneath Turkey’s wheat fields could soon happen anywhere drought and overuse collide.
“The earth doesn’t forget,” said Dr. Yılmaz. “When we take too much, it takes everything back.”
Sources: NASA Earth Observatory, U.S. Geological Survey, Turkey Today, Konya Technical University.
I would “literally” investigate what is underground! There are so many cities and tunnels and speed travel all over the world underground, eventually the Earth has got to give!
These are good places to deposit the world’s trash.