Turkey’s agricultural heartland is literally caving in. In the drought-hit Konya Plain, hundreds of sinkholes are opening without warning, swallowing fields and scarring one of the nation’s most important wheat-growing regions.

A new government assessment has identified 684 such chasms so far, with fresh drone footage revealing the dramatic pace at which the land is collapsing.

The surge in dramatic sinkholes tearing through central Turkey’s farmland is being driven by a dangerous mix of geology, extreme drought and decades of overpumping groundwater for irrigation, scientists and officials say.

Most of the new craters are appearing in the Konya Closed Basin, a vast, flat plain underlain by soluble carbonate and gypsum rocks that naturally form cavities over thousands of years.

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