Why Ballarat Has So Many Sinkholes

Mysterious holes are opening across the streets, backyards, and parks of Ballarat, a city once defined by its gold rush past. These aren’t just surface-level potholes—they’re deep, dangerous collapses revealing a vast, forgotten network of underground mine shafts dug over a century ago. In this article, we uncover how 19th-century gold mining has come back to haunt Ballarat in the form of modern sinkholes. Beneath the surface lies a hollow, crumbling legacy of quartz reef tunnels, deep leads, and abandoned shafts, many of which are now collapsing beneath unsuspecting residents. This is the story of a city slowly sinking into its own history.