Skip to main content

VIDEO: A sinking feeling in Florence

Be careful where you park your car in Florence, Italy. Might be best to not leave your vehicle next to the River Arno. In this case, 20 drivers returned to their cars only to find them sitting in a 6.5m deep sinkhole next to the river. The ‘hole’ appeared after what media reports said was a water main burst that flooded the road’s substructure, dropping nearly 200m of pavement into rushing water from the ruptured pipe. Vehicles remained out of the river, thanks to a brick wall. Nobody was injured in the
May 27, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Be careful where you park your car in Florence, Italy. Might be best to not leave your vehicle next to the River Arno.

In this case, 20 drivers returned to their cars only to find them sitting in a 6.5m deep sinkhole next to the river.

The ‘hole’ appeared after what media reports said was a water main burst that flooded the road’s substructure, dropping nearly 200m of pavement into rushing water from the ruptured pipe. Vehicles remained out of the river, thanks to a brick wall.

Nobody was injured in the collapse and emergency crews quickly began the cleanup of the area that leads up to the city’s iconic Ponte Vecchio. Tourists were quick to capitalise on the sight by taking ‘selfies’ with the sunken parking area in the background.

Related Content

  • The US FAST Act: a job left unfinished
    April 4, 2016
    US roads and bridges are crumbling at an alarming rate as state governments wring their hands over the increasingly scarce money for repairs. Enter the FAST Act. But is it enough? US state transportation department officials, as well as highway contractors and operators, breathed a sigh of relief in December. For months the highways infrastructure sector waited anxiously to see where the necessary money for road projects would come from. For several years, the Highways Trust Fund – the usual way of paying f
  • SWARCO milestone in Reading
    February 7, 2023
    Variable messaging signs from SWARCO Traffic have reached a 10-year milestone to reduce congestion and improve traffic flow in the English city of Reading.
  • Senior ADB figure urges governments to act on sustainable transport
    September 27, 2013
    Multilateral development banks (MDB) are determined to do all they can to encourage governments of developing countries meet key sustainable transport targets, according to a senior figure at one of the world’s biggest MDB’s. Guy Woodford reports Tyrrell Duncan, Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) director of Transport and Communications Division, East Asia has been at the forefront of MDB efforts to enhance sustainable transport and road safety in developing countries. Speaking during a break in talks at the In
  • Get paid faster for your work by being efficient, optimised, and careful with resources… get connected now
    September 1, 2023
    In this, the third roundtable meeting in World Highways’ series of Connected Construction discussions, Guy Woodford discusses the implications of developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine control with world-class experts in their field. Find out what Elwyn McLachlan, vice president of Civil Solutions at Trimble, Murray Lodge, senior vice president and general manager of Construction at Topcon Positioning Group, and Magnus Thibblin, vice president Heavy Construction at Hexagon Geosystems have to say about how you should be positioning your company for a successful future.