The Lake Peigneur disaster is the story of what can happen when two types of mineral extraction collide. On November 20, 1980, a Texaco crew started drilling in the lake, unaware due to a miscalculation that they were directly above a shaft of an operating salt mine with workers present. Penetration of the shaft resulted in a whirlpool forming as the lake drained into the salt mine, causing salt water to flow into the lake from the Gulf of Mexico through a 12 mile channel.
Despite the $5 million drilling rig and barges in the channel being swallowed up in a whirlpool, no one was killed or seriously injured in the disaster. The eleven foot deep freshwater lake had been turned into a 1300 foot deep body of salt water in about two days.
[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddlrGkeOzsI[/embedyt]
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