Video: Homes swallowed by sinkhole in California Eight houses, which were built 30 years ago in the area about 160 kilometres north of San Francisco, have had to be abandoned and ten more are under notice of imminent evacuation. Scott Spivey and his wife Robin had to leave their home in March after huge cracks began appearing in their walls and their garage broke away from their house. "It's very painful to see your house like this, especially in this condition, especially after all the years of putting in hard work into trying to make this a really nice place," said Mr Spivey. Unlike other sinkholes in the US, which can gobble homes in an instant, this collapse in hilly volcanic country can move several metres in one day, and then just a fraction of a centimetre the next.