Holy gigantic sinkhole, Batman!

As noted earlier, today is Atlantic hurricane season’s opening day. But the Pacific hurricane season starts a half-month earlier, on May 15, and it has already produced a landfalling system — Tropical Storm Agatha — which has killed more than 150 people in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and produced this enormous, building-swallowing sinkhole in Guatemala City:

Photo courtesy of the Guatemalan government. More here.

Alan Sullivan wrote last night that conditions in Central America are “bad, but not as bad as I feared.” Then again, what he feared was really bad, as he wrote Saturday morning:

Agatha is moving ENE at very low latitude, S of El Salvador. This is bizarre, and very bad. Agatha is organizing rapidly and gathering a huge slug of moisture from the abnormally warm patch of ocean where it has formed. Normally such systems head west harmlessly. This eastbound cyclone will bring the full force of an epic tropical rainstorm into the poor and populous lands in its path: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. Whole mountains may collapse — the soggy, clay rich volcanoes of that region have a terrible history of landslides. Pray for our Central American neighbors. I fear a great tragedy impends.

We’ll see. 150+ dead in initial reports from a developing country (or countries) usually means a lot more dead in reality. It already sounds plenty bad enough:

Guatemala is in a state of crisis today after twin natural calamities struck: First, on May 27 the Pacaya volcano (just 19 miles from the capital) woke up in a bad mood. Lava flowed, black sand and rock and ash spewed everywhere. A newscaster covering the news near the volcano was killed by flying rocks.

Two days later on May 29, tropical storm “Agatha” struck, destroying homes, causing floods, and creating tens of thousands of internally displaced. Infrastructure in this country—where the majority live in poverty—is very poor, and ill-equipped to handle such a double blow. As of last night, official numbers on storm: about 30,000 “refugees,” close to 120,000 evacuated, 93 dead and rising. Guatemala’s one international airport has been has been closed for days, and just as it prepares to reopen today, there’s word of new volcanic activity.

The poor always suffer the most when events like this happen, and the two events together caused surreal conditions: knee-deep black sand mud, and “instant concrete” that forms when rain meets ash, clogging up drains and fragile sewage systems.