source : the age
A tow truck has been called in to remove a car after it fell into a sinkhole that opened in Perth’s south-east on Tuesday morning when a burst water main flooded the road.
The driver had a lucky escape and was not injured as the hole opened beneath their car about 4am.
They had driven through floodwater from a burst water main on The Bridgeway, near Gateway Boulevard, when the car became stuck.
Photos and vision of the scene show the car all but disappearing into the hole.
A Water Corporation spokesperson said crews were on site within 30 minutes and isolated the main, and were working on Tuesday to repair the damage.
A tow truck was later called in to pull the car out of the sinkhole, but as of Tuesday afternoon crews were still working to safely remove the car.
“Water remains isolated to 10 homes, and we are providing them with bottled water,” a Water Corporation spokesperson said.
“It’s still too early to say when the repairs will be completed by this evening and road re-opened.”
Earlier, Paul Prottey, the Water Corporation’s manager of service delivery for the Perth region, told ABC Perth to have a car “fall into a hole in the middle of a road” was an “extremely rare occurrence”.
He said the water utility would examine the cause of the pipe’s failure when the car was removed to see if there were a chance it could happen elsewhere.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Water Corporation website was still showing outages along The Bridgeway, Gateway Boulevard and Figtree Drive.
