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

  • Show me the money at Australian Summit
    September 4, 2012
    The question of how to finance and fund major road infrastructure projects in Australia – including the potential role of user-pays charging as a funding solution – was top of mind at the recent Roads Australia National Summit in Sydney. The two-day summit, organised by peak national body Roads Australia, is the largest and most influential annual gathering of industry decision-makers in the country. This year’s summit was held against a backdrop of concern over the future of a raft of major road projects t
  • Sandvik’s Turkish delight at groundbreaking tunnel vision
    May 20, 2014
    Turkey’s longest, and what will be the world’s fourth longest, highway tunnel is being built under Mount Ovit in the northeast of the country. Sandvik Construction is playing a vital role in the construction of the giant new structure, which will enable all-year-round access to what is a relatively remote and often snow-blocked part of Anatolia Having had their freedom of movement blighted for many years by wintertime snow blocking the D925 highway, along with narrower roads and passes, at Mount Ovit, resi
  • Cat's emerging pavers
    January 4, 2013
    Caterpillar paving products are in demand worldwide, with the firm placing great importance on its offering to Africa and Middle East customers, as Guy Woodford reports. Caterpillar’s new CW34 pneumatic compactor, first exhibited at Intermat 2012 in Paris, is a valued machine in some of the company’s key regional markets, according to Gianluca Lombardi, Cat’s EAME (Europe, Africa and Middle East) paving products regional sales support consultant. It’s an important machine for the Africa and Middle East mark
  • Thames Crossing tunnels tendered
    November 13, 2020
    The Crossing will almost double road capacity across the Thames River near London.