Sinkholes fill Turkey’s breadbasket in drought

Sinkholes fill Turkey’s breadbasket in drought

KARAPINAR, Turkey: Sinkholes wide enough to swallow a bus dot the drought-stricken breadbasket of the Turkish plains, worrying farmers as they spread and creep closer to residential homes. "The drought situation is getting worse,“ said farmer Tahsin Gundogdu, whose harvest includes potatoes he sells to the US food giant PepsiCo.

The 57-year-old has seen the huge holes yawn open in the past 10 to 15 years as the overuse of groundwater for irrigation takes its toll. Dizzyingly deep, they appear when underground caverns created by drought can no longer contain the weight of the layer of soil above. This puts farmers in a bind.

Attempts to get water by other means are more expensive, cutting farmers' incomes. But continued reliance on groundwater will likely make the problem only worse. Professor Fetullah Arik has counted around 600 sinkholes in the Konya plain, where he heads the Sinkhole Research Centre at the Konya Technical University - nearly double the 350 counted last year.

'Worse than COVID'

Experts want the government to do more to address extreme drought, blaming the lack of a proper water management policy for Turkey's woes. Trying to cut groundwater use, farmers have been forced to water their fields more, leading to higher