The Lake Peigneur Drilling Accident is a tale of water getting into a salt mine from the lake above, due to drilling for oil in the wrong place. As the water dissolved the salt, the hole grew bigger and bigger, exponentially. The lake emptied into the salt mine, turning it into brine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur

So I'm picturing water leaking into a salt mine full of pressurized air. Naively it makes a hole, and a hole is just a leak. But if the water starts dissolving the salt in a process that runs away, then it is more like popping a balloon, but on a grand scale.