BLACK HAWK, S.D. (AP) - Thirty people who lost their homes when the ground collapsed in a Black Hawk neighborhood and exposed an abandoned mine have now signed on to a lawsuit seeking compensation from the state of South Dakota.
The Hideaway Hills residents say the state mined underneath the entire neighborhood up until 1993 but failed to reclaim or warn buyers about the now-collapsing mine.
The lawsuit says that failure resulted in residents purchasing and living in homes that are both worthless and dangerous. Initially, about 40 people in 15 homes were forced to evacuate when the ground collapsed in April 2020 revealing a shallow gypsum mine.
“Hideaway Hills is essentially sitting upon ‘Swiss cheese’ as a result of the mining activities of the state,” the complaint said. “The land over the Gypsum Mine is collapsing” and “eventually all of it is going to collapse into the mine,” the Rapid City Journal reported.
“You could have a kid fall in a hole, you could have a school bus fall in a hole” or a collapse could cause a gas explosion, said attorney Kathleen Barrow of Fox Rothschild, a large national law firm.
Barrow said she suspected the mine was larger than previously thought because homes and roads outside of the collapse are experiencing small collapses and shifts in the ground and walls.
The lawsuit filed in Meade County is one of at least two that have been filed over the sinkhole and abandoned mine.
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