Sinkhole Almost Swallows a Bus in London, Passengers Had To Be Rescued

As if the Earth's surface is getting weaker by the day, another sinkhole appeared, this time in London. It is smaller than the one that recently appeared in Japan, but this one almost swallowed a bus as it opened up on the streets.

Firefighters had to rescue the passengers to bring them to safety. Before the sinkhole almost swallowed a bus on the road, a water main line burst that turned the road into a river on Lewisham. The flooding worsened the situation where passengers had to be evacuated.

"We helped passengers off a coach that fell into a hole caused by flood water on Lee High Road in Lewisham. Please avoid the area if possible," an official from the London Fire Brigade said in a Tweet.

The opening on the road was attributed a water line malfunction that also caused the flooding. The sinkhole appeared on the Lewisham Lee High Road last Saturday, Nov. 26. The passengers aboard the bus had to be rescued by firefighters after part of the coach fell into the hole.

The bus got stuck in the sinkhole while parts of it were submerged in water. Although smaller in scale, the sinkhole garnered attention due to the rescue situation. Passengers were rescued while the bus is still stuck in the hole. Images and footage of the incident quickly flooded various social media sites.

Due to the incident, the police was forced to block the said street. While residents were also forced to flee the neighborhood in the meantime due to the disrupted water service. The authorities promptly provided temporary shelters for those displaced due to flooding, according to a report by The Guardian. Road closure in the area means 18 disrupted routes.

Reports say sinkholes have been appearing in London in the recent years like the one that appeared in South London in Forest Hill. London is even more fortunate compared to the gigantic sinkhole that appeared in Fukuoka in Japan that swallowed a five-lane street.

Although the Japan sinkhole was fixed in just two days, it reappeared causing another batch of traffic and business disruption along the busy street much like how London has to experience before the flooding and sinkhole were fixed.