Seems like I remember something like this happening in Russia a few years ago (from a Discovery Channel special (?)) were a whole lake disappeared.
There was a whole lake that disappeared. But it was in the US and it was circa 1980.
It was Lake Peigneur in Louisiana. Eleven barges, and a 150 FOOT TALL drilling rig disappeared into a lake 10 FOOT deep.
Here is an informative video of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddlrGkeOzsI&NR=1
"But one elderly villager sitting outside her house had another kind of force in mind. "I thought the Americans had got here," she said, laughing."