Sinkhole Montreal: Large 8m Sinkhole Swallows Digger and Worker (PHOTO, VIDEO)
A sinkhole in Montreal has swallowed up a large backhoe digger on Monday, stunning locals and bringing concern to local residents.
The massive sinkhole has been measured as 8m long and 5m wide. It opened up and swallowed the digger at about 9 a.m. ET on Monday morning at the intersection of Guy and St. Gatherine streets, according to local media reports.
After the digger fell into the large sinkhole, emergency responders quickly moved in; the driver of the digger was able to climb out of the hole and reportedly was not seriously injured in the fall.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Officials moved in to secure the area and make sure no one else was injured, but by Monday night the digger was still inside the hole, and officials had said it would take until Tuesday before they could recover the large piece of excavation machinery.
The removal of the digger was complicated by a gas line located nearby, and the officials were still concerned that the hole could get larger.
It is believed that the sinkhole was caused by a leaking sewer pipe across the street at the location.
Workers had moved in to work on the fault and repair the leak, however, the ground is said to have collapsed and created the sinkhole as they were working, according to borough spokeswoman Emilie Miskdjian.
Local shop owner Rahman Esmaili told news reporters that he had advised the city about the leak more than a week ago, "Eight days ago we saw some water coming from the streets and we approached the city and there was no reaction from the city," he told the Canadian Press.
Emaili told the Canadian Broadcasting Company, "It was pouring in the wall and coming down in the whole street and it smells and all this nonsense — you cannot imagine."
Just over the weekend, a mysterious sinkhole in West Kansas measuring more than 200 feet across and 90 feet deep, swallowed a pasture. No injuries were reported in that incident but that sinkhole is said to be still expanding and growing bigger.
A local police officer told KWCH-TV: "Man had nothing to do with this. This is a God thing. There's no oil well around here, there are no irrigation wells anywhere near. This is something that just happened."
Here is a video showing the Montreal sinkhole:
