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London sinkhole partially swallows car London sinkhole partially swallows car
(about 1 hour later)
A car has fallen into a sinkhole in a residential street in London. A sinkhole has opened up outside an graveyard in south London and partially swallowed a people carrier.
The Metropolitan police were called to Woodland Terrace in Greenwich at 3.23am on Thursday. The Metropolitan police were called to Woodland Terrace in Greenwich at around 3.23am on Thursday. Officers found the front of the blue family car poking out of the hole, which had appeared outside Benefice of Charlton St Thomas’ church.
Officers discovered a blue people carrier, which had been parked outside Benefice of Charlton St Thomas’ church, partially in the hole. No one was injured, said police. But one local man said he feared the worst. “I have never seen anything like this before. You don’t expect dirty great holes opening up in the ground,” said Jamie Thornton, who spotted the hole as he drove to work. “I do hope it isn’t a portal to hell and the apocalypse is coming.”
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A police spokesman said no one had been injured in the incident. It seems that the sudden collapse of the road may have been caused by torrential rain in the capital over the past couple of days. Thornton, 45, told the Mirror that the weather overnight was “abysmal”.
He added: “Officers are on the scene and there is a cordon in place. The local authority has been called and there are other agencies on scene.” “We had this massive storm overhead that sounded like the heavens were opening,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it when I realised there was this massive hole in the ground.”
A royal borough of Greenwich spokesman said the council was working with emergency services to secure the area. Edward Simmons, who lives down the road from the scene, said he heard nothing overnight and only learned about the hole when a friend texted him at about 6.45am. He walked down to take a look.
He added: “We are urgently investigating the matter and will update residents the moment we have more information.” “Someone down the road [who] was outside said they heard a big bang but went back to bed,” Simmons said. ““It’s halfway across the road. It’s a bus route. It’s next to a graveyard, next to a drainage system, so there’s lots of stuff it could be. People were saying it might be the heavy rain but I can’t see how that would have affected it.
“Thames Water and gas and all those sort of people started turning up. I imagine there’s a fair crowd out there now.”
Simmons and other local people took the opportunity to take a photograph.
Sinkhole Woodland Terrace SE7 380 buses will be on diversion, road closed pic.twitter.com/QOvjpMF0Pa
Sinkhole in SE London causes mass outbreak in smartphone photography.11 million images have so far, and that's just emergency services
A police spokesman said officers were on the scene and had cordoned off the area. A spokeswoman for Thames Water said: “The hole was reported to us just after 4am today and we’ve got engineers at the scene checking there is no damage to our clean water or sewer pipes.”
A royal borough of Greenwich spokesman said the council was working with emergency services to secure the area. “We are urgently investigating the matter and will update residents the moment we have more information,” he added.