Sinkhole takes bite out of Japanese city
No injuries after stoplights, sidewalks tumble into 15-metre deep pit in downtown Fukuoka
Parts of a main street collapsed in the heart of Fukuoka in southern Japan on Tuesday, creating a massive sinkhole and cutting off power, water and gas supplies to parts of the city.
Stoplights and sidewalks tumbled more than 10 metres as the earth crumbled in downtown Fukuoka, which has a population of more than 1.5 million, snarling transport and disrupting power supply at an international airport.
Nobody was injured when the sinkhole opened with a boom shortly before dawn, but several multi-storey commercial buildings teetered dangerously at the edge of the abyss as it grew.
By afternoon, the hole was 30 metres long and 15 metres deep, swallowing an entire four-lane intersection in the middle of the business district, and appeared to still be growing.
"I saw a stoplight fall. It was really scary," one man told Fuji TV.
Subway construction nearby
The cause of the collapse is under investigation, Fukuoka officials said, but they linked it to subway construction nearby. A smaller sinkhole occurred in Fukuoka in 2014 at another location of the subway construction.
Fukuoka is about 1,000 kilometres southwest of Tokyo. The massive cave-in appeared in the city's bustling Hakata district, a major business and entertainment center, with muddy underground water flowing into the hole.
The incident prompted some residents to be forced out of nearby buildings. Officials were concerned that further erosion inside the sinkhole could prompt nearby structures to collapse.
"An accident like this is unheard of, one that should not have happened," Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima said. "We must prevent secondary accidents, and will do our utmost to restore important infrastructure."
With files from Reuters