Massive Crater Opened Up In Germany, Swallowed A Car

According to several news sites, a massive crater has opened up in the middle of a housing estate in Schmalkalden, a small town in Germany‘s central hill country, 120km northeast of Frankfurt. The hole, about 20m deep and 40m wide swallowed a car.

At about 3:00AM (0200GMT) on Monday, emergency services were called to the scene by a resident who said that he hears unusual noises. Six houses were affected and 25 people were evacuated immediately.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the ground collapsed, Lutz Katschmann of Thuringia state’s environment and geology office said. Katschmann added that it was possible that rock formations underground broke up that created a cavity. Germany occasionally experiences potholes when water creates cavities in areas of karst rock or ancient mines collapse.

No one dared to go near the hole. A helicopter was hired to take aerial photographs and measurements, Mayor Thomas Kaminski said.

N24 television quoted Fred Jaeger, another police spokesperson, saying that police were checking some residents’ claim who remembered there had been a Second World War air-raid bunker under the street.

Here is a Youtube.com report from ITN News:

Photo Credit: Jens Meyer, AP

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