## 1 Introduction  
Underground cavities appear as the results of natural processes and human activities or occasionally as the action of both combined. These actions may cause the ground on which we live to displace. Whether the ground displacements are large and catastrophic or small and slow, their cumulative impact during the lifetime of humans or civilizations may be large and destructive. Underground cavities either directly damage the built environment and everything constructed by humans or cause it to be more vulnerable to other hazards such as flooding. Around the world, as the demand for land grows and humans increasingly modify their environment, more and more people might be exposed to the instabilities caused by underground cavities [1]. The collapse of the ground into subsurface cavities is a very widespread and potentially damaging phenomenon because of the large depressions (sinkholes) created and its sudden occurrence. Sinkholes occur due to the erosion of the bedrock or geo-materials around the cavity and can be triggered by rainfall, earthquake, drought, mining, drilling, pumping, tunneling works, etc. [2]. Sinkhole activities are commonly the most peculiar hazard in the karst environment [3, 4, 5]. A karst environment occurs in over 20% of the earth's ice-free continental area, and around 25% of the global population depends on the karst water supply [6]. The fragility of karst settings, enhanced by human activity, is expected to rise, therefore inducing more sinkholes in the future [7]. The bearing capacity of a shallow foundation is a non-negligible issue in the geotechnical engineering community. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [8] conducted an experimental and analytical investigation of the bearing capacity of the footing above void on silty clay using a finite element method considering the soil as an elastic perfectly plastic material. They found that, for each footing, there exists a critical depth below which the presence of a cavity has a negligible impact on the performance of the footing. [PERSON] et al. [9] conducted a series of 1G tests under plane strain conditions on stiff ground with continuous square cavities. The authors revealed three types of failure modes for a single void: bearing failure without void failure, bearing failure with void failure, and void failure without bearing failure. [PERSON] et al. [10] used an adaptive finite limit analysis (AFELA) code and generalized Hoek-Brown failure criterion to investigate a footing-cavity system with eccentric load in rock masses. Several other studies discussed this complex issue under several assumptions [11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16]. Most of the previous studies have investigated this issue by calculating a stability number N under several different assumptions [12; 17]. However, these methods are not straightforward to determine the stability level. While some studies have touched upon the influence of cavities, mostly focusing on cases where the footing and the cavity are centered, there is a gap in comprehensively addressing how a single cavity with its size and eccentric location to the footing affects the behavior of the Bearing Capacity of the footing. Also, much of the reported research on this subject has been empirical, being associated often with specific locations [12], making it a reasonable need to provide holistic solutions by incorporating the soil strength parameters. Investigating the impact of the cavity at an offset distance to the footing is crucial in preventing unforeseen hazards to engineering structures or human activities. Therefore, it is necessary to develop for this purpose robust means of risk assessment and effective mitigation strategies for footings in the vicinity of underground cavities. Identifying potential failure modes and quantifying or evaluating stability levels will contribute to devising practical and cost-effective mitigation measures that will be crucial for ensuring the safety and reliability of structures in real-world scenarios.