Terror is something we find convenient to compartmentalize. When you are on a plane, or a boat, you are prepared to accept the possibility of something horrible happening, safe in the knowledge that at least terra firma, our old reliable friend solid ground awaits you if you have the opportunity to return safely.

Even when on terra firma, one may be accosted by a host of unpleasant things, but at least the ground itself is one's loyal companion. 

But now even that safe feeling has been lost in Beijing, thanks to the disturbing proliferation of sinkholes that have been appearing.

Natural disasters were something that used to happen to people in other places,  where seeing people wander around up to their chest in water is a normal thing to observe in the media.

The unnatural amount of rain that has been dumped on the city reminds me more of a damp, depressing summer in Ireland, rather than one in Beijing. The ground in Ireland is invariably the consistency of a damp sponge, whereas the Beijing ground is more like compressed powder, which might go some way to explaining why the ground keeps disappearing.

Now even my own neighborhood, just off Chaoyang Lu, is not immune, and I had to walk around a small sinkhole on my way home from the subway at the weekend.

There's not much one can do about it if you're walking along the road and suddenly you're dangling in mid-air. Since there doesn't seem to be a useful way of predicting where these holes are, it might be a good idea to take some precautions beforehand.

One simple solution might be to have lots of rope distributed throughout the city. It may seem like a silly precaution now, but wait till you're trapped at the bottom of a large hole before you dismiss it entirely.

Perhaps a forward looking company could donate some flashlights to local governments that could be handed out to the populace. It might benefit the company in the future, and citizens would at least have some method of providing light in other emergency situations, such as the blackouts that have plagued India recently.

With the advent of smartphones most people no longer seem concerned with owning a flashlight, leaving this generation in the dark in the event of a power shortage.

Given the fact that Beijing's water table has been at dangerously low levels for several years, it's hard to complain about possible side effects of abnormally heavy downpours. Still drainage is an issue that needs to be looked at.

Of course, there is the possibility that the sinkholes and rain are unrelated, with claims that sinkholes are increasing in frequency globally. If that were the case, then these sinkholes may be the canary in the mineshaft, and we may be entering geologically interesting times.