Two people were injured when their vehicles plunged into a sinkhole on a street in Ecatepec, México state, on Friday morning.
Local authorities said the sinkhole, which has a diameter of 8 meters, opened late Thursday night under the weight of a semi-truck carrying 40 tonnes of gravel. Emergency workers freed the semi in the early hours of the morning Friday, leaving left piles of gravel and emergency markers nearby to warn drivers.
But the warning signs weren’t enough, and heavy rain prevented the drivers of two cars from seeing them. One of the vehicles, a taxi, flipped over and fell to the bottom of the sinkhole, while the other was left hanging on the edge.
The drivers, who suffered only minor injuries, admitted that driving on the street had been “imprudent.”
The sinkhole was the third on Ecatepec streets in the last few days due to heavy rains and a lack of maintenance to underground drainage and water systems.
The Ecatepec government recently announced an investment of 13 million pesos (US $683,000) to rectify the problem.
Source: El Universal (sp), Excelsior (sp)
