The dead man, identified by police as 32-year-old Klil Kimhi, was reportedly attending a private, celebratory work event held by a company that rented space for its employees. In his memory, friends are already posting on Kimhi’s Facebook wall after his death. One thanked him for “all the laughs” and another described him as “the best friend in the world”. Israel Hayom, a Jewish newspaper, acknowledged Kimhi’s death on Facebook, writing: “Heart breaks into pieces: Kalil Kamchi is victim of private pool sink disaster in [Karmei] Joseph. May his memory be a blessing.” A video of the tragic incident – which has been seen by Fox News Digital – shows the sinkhole quickly drawing water and the pool floating in as swimmers tried to escape the sudden trap. Kimhi’s body was found hours after emergency personnel completed the search, according to local reports in Israel. Police have not yet released the cause of death. In a statement translated from Hebrew to English and provided to Fox News Digital, the Israel Police said: “At the end of operational investigations, the police, fire and rescue services and the IDF Homefront Command located the missing man, approximately 30 years old – a former resident of Tel Aviv – sadly passed away,” the statement said. Aviv Bublil, the lifeguard who worked the pool party, told the Israeli news site, Ynet, that around 2:00 p.m. Israel time, a “vortex” appeared in the pool. He said on the way out that he was screaming for people to get out of the pool, but they stayed. Bublil added that the swimmers may have thought it was a game (perhaps not realizing they were in danger). “Seconds later the ground just fell away, what looked like a giant sinkhole,” Bublil said. “I saw two people… two people were missing. One that we couldn’t spot, and one that could be seen among the ruins from above. My first instinct was to try to get in… but there was no option to get in. So they called the rescue services.” The victim was a man attending a holiday work event held by a company that rented the pool area. Israel Fire & Rescue/ Facebook He continued, “It was a matter of seconds. It’s not something that looks common, so I realized it’s a kind of unusual event that I don’t usually see in pools.” Another adult male who escaped the sinkhole was treated by staff at Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank agency, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday. “A 34-year-old man who came out of the pit was sitting outside the pool agitated,” said MDA medical officer Uri Damari. “He suffered minor injuries to his head and limbs and after medical treatment we took him to hospital.” Fox News Digital has reached out to MDA for comment. A sinkhole is a hole or “depression” in the ground that has “no natural external surface drainage,” according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). “Basically, this means that when it rains, all the water stays inside the sinkhole and usually drains into the subsoil,” the agency says on the U.S. Department of the Interior website. Sinkholes are most common in areas (called karst terrain) where certain types of rock beneath the land can be naturally dissolved by groundwater circulating on the surface, the USGS reports. When water from rainfall seeps into the ground, soluble rocks (salt and domes, gypsum, limestone, and other carbonate rocks) begin to dissolve, which “creates underground spaces and caves,” according to the USGS. “Sinkholes are dramatic because the earth usually remains intact for a period of time until the underground spaces become very large.” “If there is not enough support for the earth above the sites, then sudden collapse of the earth’s surface can occur,” the USGS said. Last year, Ittai Gavrieli of the Israel Geological Survey told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that there are thousands of sinkholes around the shores of the Dead Sea, in Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, the Times of Israel reported. The USGS states that no data is available on sinkhole collapses in America, although some states will track collapses individually through geological surveys.
