Giant Sinkhole Opens Up In Brooklyn, Nearly Swallows Car (Photo)
When a sinkhole appears in an urban area it tends to draw attention, but when it appears in the heart of Brooklyn, New York it causes quite a big scene.
CBS reported that the 20-foot-deep by 20-foot-wide Brooklyn sinkhole formed Wednesday at around 6 p.m. between 4th and 5th avenues in the Bay Ridge area and as can be seen in the photo above, it nearly swallowed a car.
Yahoo reported that a woman and her mother only just left their car when the Brooklyn sinkhole appeared.
“We’re so blessed,” Maddie Flood told 1010-WINS radio. “If we were five minutes later or anything, we could have been in the hole.”
The fire department and members of the New York’s Department of Environmental Protection took nearly two hours but eventually were able to remove the car from danger.
Sinkholes are a fairly common occurrence whenever the ground beneath the service is eaten away, either by man-made methods like tunnels, mine shafts or sewers, or natural erosion. They are somewhat rare however in New York, and the Department of Environmental Protection said this one was caused by a sewer main break.
They aren’t all that unheard of though, as the same area saw a 60-foot Brooklyn sinkhole develop in June, as reported by NBC. That one caused 11 families to be evacuated from their homes near 92nd street, also in Bay Ridge.
In the case of the most recent sinkhole in Brooklyn, no one was evacuated though one address did have its gas turned off. Crews expect to work through the weekend to fill the hole and get that part of Brooklyn moving once again.
