A gigantic sinkhole has opened in Japan, swallowing huge sections of road including traffic lights, near underground work to extend a subway tunnel.
The seven to eight meter-wide hole was first reported in the early hours of Tuesday morning local time, according to Motohisa Oda, a crisis management officer from Fukuoka city.
Nearby residents have been evacuated, and five major roads cordoned off in Hakata ward, in Fukuoka city’s busy business district.
The gaping hole — which started off as two smaller holes that merged into one — appeared 300 meters from the JR Hakata railway station.
The sinkhole is now a whopping 27 meters wide, 30 meters long and 15 meters deep. It has also filled with water that seeped in from sewage pipes destroyed by collapsing sections of road.
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Subway work was underway
City officials were working nearby to extend the subway from JR Hakata Station to the city center along a 1.4 kilometer route.
Oda told CNN that the hole may have been triggered by the subterranean construction works.
The sinkhole has cut power to roughly 170 households across Fukuoka city. Saibu, a Japan-based gas supplier, is also checking for any gas leakages in the area.
While authorities are still investigating what exactly caused the hole, a few social media users in Japan have been joking about the kind of monsters that might emerge.
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“Uh oh, this thing might emerge in front of Hakata station,” tweeted @_zukkyun, linking to a cartoon monster with a screwdriver for a nose.
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