Skip to main content

A sinkhole in St Albans near London swallows up the road

Around 20 residents of St Albans, a town near London, were evacuated after a huge sinkhole appeared overnight. The hole, 20m in diameter and 10m deep, cut right across at the road and well into an adjoining garden, leaving one family’s car stranded on the driveway. Residents are said to have heard a crash before the huge crater appeared, according to a BBC report. The local fire service said it had been aware of a small hole that was due to be filled in, but a resident called the station at 1:30 in the mor
October 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Around 20 residents of St Albans, a town near London, were evacuated after a huge sinkhole appeared overnight.

The hole, 20m in diameter and 10m deep, cut right across at the road and well into an adjoining garden, leaving one family’s car stranded on the driveway.

Residents are said to have heard a crash before the huge crater appeared, according to a %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal BBC report Visit BBC page false http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34411214 false false%>.

The local fire service said it had been aware of a small hole that was due to be filled in, but a resident called the station at 1:30 in the morning to say the hole had "opened up substantially", the BBC reported.

The local authority, the Hertfordshire County Council, said a small hole had appeared in footpath nearby and workers were scheduled to soon fill it in.

One heavily pregnant woman was woken by the sound of the noise, “like an earthquake". Her husband jumped out of bed, looked out the window and said the road had gone.

"If this doesn't bring on my labour then nothing will," she said.

Related Content

  • Parking bays too small for comfort
    February 18, 2015
    A UK local authority council has been criticised for what one resident has said is knowingly creating undersized parking bays. The parking area -- smaller than recommended -- makes it harder for motorists to make sure all their vehicle is within the legally allotted area. The council has been fining motorists for not having their cars completely parked within the parking bay, and that’s not fair, said the resident of Newbury town, just outside London. He reportedly went around measuring the parking bay, acc
  • VIDEO: Car owner’s manual – chapter one, snake removal
    October 26, 2016
    Snakes can get into the darnedest places, such as your car. The issue then becomes how to get it out. The answer is, with a lot of work and care as well as an equal amount of patience, such as possessed by the man in this video shot somewhere possibly in Southeast Asia Getting a small snake out of a car is tough. Getting a large one out is practically impossible - at least extracting the reptile in one piece and alive is.
  • UK road maintenance industry’s new safe driving through roadworks radio campaign
    October 22, 2013
    Leading UK road maintenance companies have this week joined together with the Highways Agency to launch a national radio campaign to ask drivers to ‘take extra care’ through roadworks. Messages being aired on commercial radio stations across England from 21st October-3rd November consist of a series of three hard-hitting messages to raise awareness among the public of the need to drive safely through roadworks.
  • Faster than a speeding cow – your local bus maybe?
    May 22, 2015
    A methane-powered bus has set a speed record for a regular city bus of nearly 124km/h at a test track in the UK, according to media reports. The bus, from the southern city of Reading, was converted to run on compressed methane from cow manure and was painted black and white like a Friesian cow. Mechanics removed the bus’s engine governor that restricted the vehicle’s speed to 90km/h. The bus then broke the record on the banked high-speed circuit at Millbrook Proving Ground, near the city of Bedford.