I've seen more than one person ask this question online. Quicksand was an ever-present threat in the films of our youth, but now you never hear of it.
Not quite never. Here's a story from the North Norfolk News:
A warning has been issued for quicksand around a ramp leading down to a popular beach.
North Norfolk District Council has temporarily closed the ramp at Happisburgh following the poor weather brought in by Storm Goretti.
On Saturday, the Happisburgh Coast Watch warned that "areas of very soft sand" were developing in the area.
A spokesman for the voluntarily manned station said: "If you are visiting Cart Gap Beach today, please be aware that there are some areas of very soft sand in the vicinity of the access ramp."
The newspaper goes on to report:
Last October, a woman walking towards Happisburgh via Walcott beach came into difficulty in a patch of sinking sand near the groynes.
She was left submerged "up to her thighs" before managing to pull herself out of danger and shout for help.
But it's true that we used to hear far more about quicksand. And it's even possible to put figures on that.
For that, go to an edition of the Radiolab podcast that I included in a Joy of Six long ago:
Producer Soren Wheeler introduces us to Dan Engber, writer and columnist for Slate, who ran across a strange fact: kids are no longer afraid of quicksand. To figure out what happened to quicksand, Dan immersed himself in research, compiled mountains of data, and met with quicksand fetishists.
Dan tells Soren and Robert about his journey, and shares his theory about why the terror of his childhood seems to have lost its menacing allure. And Carlton Cuse, best-known as writer and executive producer of Lost, weighs in on whether giant pits of hero-swallowing mud might one day creep back into the spotlight.
Here's the podcast. And if you follow the link to Radiolab above you will see a graph of appearances of quicksand in films. They peaked in the Sixties.
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