Sinkhole In Montreal Swallows Backhoe [Video]

A front-loading backhoe was swallowed by a sinkhole today in Montreal.

According to CNews, construction crews were working at a busy intersection in downtown Montreal when a sinkhole opened up and swallowed the backhoe. The hole is about 10 feet deep, 25 feet long and 15 feet wide.

The person who was driving the backhoe was not injured in the incident.

City officials said that they have come up with a plan to get the backhoe out of the sinkhole but they are still waiting for approval. The CBC reports that officials are worried about a nearby gas line. They also aren’t sure if the ground will give way again as they attempt to move the vehicle.

Still, officials believe that they’ll be able to get the vehicle out of the hole sometime tomorrow morning. That is only the first part of the problem, however. Once the backhoe is removed city officials will have to inspect the damage and figure out what caused the ground to open up.

At the moment it’s still unclear as to what caused the sinkhole in Montreal but spokeswoman Emilie Miskdjian suspects that a faulty sewer line may have caused the soil to beneath the street to erode.

Miskdjian said: “We think that the water leak was because of the sewer pipe…it’s a broken sewer pipe… That’s what we think, but we will have to do an inspection to determine the cause.”

[Image Via Twitter]