A sinkhole roughly 8–10 m wide and several metres deep has opened on the AJ Burkitt Reserve sporting oval in Heidelberg, directly adjacent to the North East Link tunnel alignment in Melbourne’s northeast. Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority has confirmed the “surface hole” is in the vicinity of active tunnelling operations, leading to a work pause while engineers and emergency crews carry out geotechnical investigations and monitoring. No injuries or structural damage have been reported, but the area remains fully cordoned off pending cause determination and stability assessment.

Mineração Morro do Ipê (MMI) has installed 19 HÖRMANN Warnsysteme electronic sirens as an automated warning system for communities in the tailings dam impact zone. The sirens are linked to dam monitoring sensors and are configured to trigger automatically in the event of a breach, removing reliance on manual activation during fast‑developing failures. For geotechnical and emergency planners, the project illustrates integration of real‑time instrumentation with public alerting infrastructure as part of Brazilian post‑Brumadinho tailings risk management practice.

Rainfall-triggered rockfall on Highway 18 in San Bernardino County has blocked lanes and damaged barriers along a steep cut slope, following weeks of intense winter storms that saturated highly fractured granitic and metamorphic rock. Caltrans geotechnical crews report multiple failures from tension cracks and oversteepened slopes above the roadway, with debris reaching the carriageway and impacting existing rockfall fences. Engineers are now assessing options including expanded rock bolting, additional draped mesh, improved surface and subsurface drainage, and revised slope scaling protocols ahead of further atmospheric river events.