Sinkholes, Collapsing Canal Walls, Rickety Bridges: Amsterdam Is Crumbling
It was a rainy evening in April when Marlies Pinksterboer, an Amsterdam-based jewelry designer, was startled by a loud, rumbling sound. “It was as if a part of a building had come crashing down,” she said. “It was crazy.”
It was too dark to see what had happened, but when she opened the curtains in the morning she saw that the street on the other side of the canal had been cordoned off. A large sinkhole had appeared, and an antique lamp post next to it had fallen down. A shopping cart, devoured by the gaping pit, glittered in the hole.
That’s when Ms. Pinksterboer started worrying about the 17th-century canal house she lived in. “Will that one day come crashing down,” she wondered, half serious, while standing on one of the ancient brick and mortar walls that line the canals in her neighborhood of Groenburgwal, one of the oldest areas of Amsterdam.
The danger is certainly not exaggerated. Amsterdam, with its scenic canals lined with picturesque, 17th- and 18th-century buildings, a major European tourist destination, is slowly crumbling.
