A GIANT sinkhole at a Queensland camping spot is now relatively stable and may have actually been a landslide, a geotechnical engineer says.

    About 300 campers were evacuated from Inskip Point near Rainbow Beach on Saturday night after the large cavity opened up and swallowed a caravan, car, trailer and tents.

    “Preliminary advice is that the event may have been a ‘near shore landslide’ rather than a true sinkhole,” the Department of National Parks said in a statement yesterday.

    The cavity is now about 200 meters long, 50 meters wide and up to nine meters deep.

    A geotechnical engineer also advised the site is now relatively stable, with a flat beach edge forming.

    Coastal erosion is still occurring, so more trees may fall down, and the exclusion zone has been expanded by 200 meters for safety reasons.

    Camping grounds on either side of the site remain closed and the public has been urged to avoid the area, observe traffic barriers and warning signs.

    All the school holiday campers escaped and no injuries were reported.

    One camper has relived the moment he saw his new US$150,000 holiday home and car disappear in the murky water after teetering on the edge for around 30 minutes.

    “It was just eroding before our eyes, it was just falling away,” he said.

    Darren Chilton was asleep in his tent when he suddenly heard water lapping just inches away.

    “The water was way back there around 10 or 15 meters away. You think you’re alright and then there’s suddenly water in your back yard.

    “Then there was just mayhem with people trying to get stuff out.”

    Holidaymaker Casey Hughes said the sinkhole “sounded like a thunder noise” as it opened up.

    Fellow camper Sylvia Murray said “it was amazing to see.”

    Geotechnical engineer Allison Golsby said the area has a history of sinkholes and should be closely monitored to warn of any further disasters.

    She also said scientific reports indicate the entire peninsula could eventually fall away.

    “People have said that at some stage they think Inskip Point may not be there,” she told ABC radio.

    “Now that could be thousands of years; it could be hundreds of years.”

    (SD-Agencies)