Contractors have been ordered to plug a giant sinkhole in a street in Thailand’s capital caused by the collapse of an under-construction train tunnel, as the city governor on Thursday described the disaster as “a test” for the capital, with fears mounting of fresh subsidence.
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The hole – 30 metres (98 feet) wide and up to 50 metres (164 feet) deep – opened up on Wednesday morning close to a major public hospital in Bangkok’s historic old quarter, causing patients and nearby residents to be evacuated.
Dramatic footage of the sinkhole emerging went viral, as several parked cars and electricity poles were sucked into the chasm and the pavement crumbled, giving way just short of oncoming traffic. It also damaged the foundations of a nearby police station.
Engineers overnight stopped the torrent of water from a burst pipe that had threatened to further destabilise the soil around the collapsed tunnel for a new train line and station being built by the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA).
Massive sinkhole swallows cars in Bangkok
Massive sinkhole swallows cars in Bangkok
The contractor has been “ordered to immediately backfill the sinkhole … to stop the flow of soil and groundwater into the train station construction area,” state-run National News Bureau of Thailand reported on Thursday.
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