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Deadly Florida Sinkhole Is Finally Revealed

The deadly sinkhole that swallowed a man at his home in Florida has been uncovered by demolition teams.

The remaining walls of the house were knocked down on Monday and debris was dragged towards the street to reveal the crater in Seffner, about 15 miles east of Tampa.

The authorities estimate that it now measures 30 feet (9m) across and between 30 and 100ft (30m) deep.

It has become the final resting place of Jeff Bush, whose body was never recovered after the sinkhole opened up under his bedroom on Thursday night.

Five other family members who were in the house escaped unharmed.

During a brief ceremony on Monday afternoon, the 37-year-old's family placed a teddy bear, a photo, notes and flowers into the bucket of a digger which dropped them into the makeshift grave.

Then the first load of gravel to stabilise the hole was poured on top.

Jeremy Bush, 35, who tried to save his brother thanked rescuers and salvage teams, but also suggested they could have "tried harder".

"I tried my hardest to get you out, brother," he said through his tears at a news conference.

"I think I'm the only one that really tried to get you out. They said the ground was too unstable to do anything, but they got all this heavy equipment on there, pulling stuff out and everyone's cheering for everything that's coming out of the house. I've had enough of the cheering."

Rescue teams had halted all recovery efforts on Saturday when the site became too unstable.

Two neighbouring houses have been evacuated and could also be condemned.

Florida is highly prone to sinkholes because there are caverns below ground of limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water.

A second hole was reported about three miles away from the Bush family's home on Monday but aside from a piece of fence, there was no serious damage and nobody was hurt.

It is the loss of life that makes the Seffner case so highly unusual and tragic.