On November 20, 1980, an oil rig operated by Texaco was drilling in Lake Peigneur, Louisiana. Unbeknownst to the crew, a simple coordinate system miscalculation caused them to drill in the wrong spot, directly above the active Diamond Crystal salt mine operating hundreds of feet beneath the lake bed. When the 14-inch drill bit punctured the roof of the mine shaft, water began seeping through.
As the freshwater dissolved the water-soluble salt pillars, the hole rapidly widened into a roaring vortex. The resulting whirlpool created a massive siphon effect that sucked down the oil rig, eleven barges, tugboats, trees, and 65 acres of surrounding land. Astonishingly, the pressure differential reversed the flow of the Delcambre Canal, turning a freshwater outlet into a saltwater canal that temporarily created the tallest waterfall in Louisiana at 150 feet high as the Gulf of Mexico rushed back to fill the void.
Remarkably, despite the catastrophic destruction, all 55 miners underground and the oil rig crew managed to escape without a single human life lost.