DAISETTA, Tex.  A huge and ravenous sinkhole that threatened to swallow this little East Texas oil town gobbled more crumbling earth Thursday but spared, at least for now, homes, the high school and the main road, Farm to Market 770.

“It’s unreal  the earth just wallered up,” said Lynn Wells, the mayor and fire chief, who monitored emergency efforts, speeding back and forth on his red Harley-Davidson.

Since the rim of an underground salt dome collapsed and the ground cracked and gave way abruptly Wednesday morning, the hole  already one of the largest on record, geologists here said  has grown to about 600 feet by 525 feet and 150 feet deep, said Cpl. Hugh Bishop of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office.

Tom Branch, coordinator of the Liberty County Office of Emergency Management, has been in the job only two weeks and was expecting something different from oil country.