Sinkholes have again appeared in a southern Chinese city, this time on a Guangzhou street when a passing cement truck suddenly collapsed into a hole directly beneath it, throwing local traffic into chaos.

The ten square meter-wide sinkhole appeared on Saturday night in the Huadu District of Guangzhou. The massive hole had a diameter of ten meters and was 1.5 meters deep, occupying three lanes of traffic.

The hole neatly accommodated the cement truck, tipping it onto its right side.

There were no injuries reported.

A day afterwards, the truck had been removed and the sinkhole filled in with concrete (shown below). With the area still cordoned off, only one lane of the road was open to traffic.

No official reason has been given for the road collapse, although local residents suspect it may be related to construction of the city’s subway tunnels.

Sinkholes have been opening up in Guangzhou at an alarmingly common rate.

On June 14th, a sinkhole appeared in Huangpu District. Although the reason for the sinkhole hasn’t been made clear, the hole appeared directly underneath a car (seen above), similar to how the street collapsed underneath the cement truck in the most recent case. A similar case also occurred in June of last year when a Guangzhou road broke underneath the weight of a passing public bus.

Sinkholes also appeared in Guangzhou last year in the city’s Baiyun and Liwan districts. Huadu had previously experienced a sinkhole in 2014.

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Measuring about 5 meters (16 feet) long, 3 meters (10 feet) wide, and 3 meters deep, the sinkhole miraculously did not cause any injuries.

Emergency crews removed the cars in an hour-long retrieval operation. An investigation into the cause of the sinkhole is pending.

Sinkholes are nothing new in China, particularly as cities continue to construct tunnels for urban subway systems. Last November, Nanjing saw five sinkholes appear in a single month. In August 2015, Dongguan saw a massive sinkhole that killed a construction worker. Shenzhen had a sinkhole in May 2015 and August 2013, while Fujian had one in December 2014 .

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Located in Shalao Hutong, in Beijing’s Andingmen area in Dongcheng District, the newly discovered, albeit unfinished, illegal structure was three floors, or ten meters (32.8 feet) deep, with a total floor space of some 700 square meters (2,296 square feet).

Walls and pillars were strengthened with reinforced concrete, and the underground complex resembles a pyramid: the second-level was between two and three times larger than the first underground level. The third level was unfinished.

Built under two adjacent bungalows owned by a 50 year-old man named Li, construction was hidden from neighbors by hiring workers from midnight to dawn, and using shovels to dig the vast underground chamber rather than draw attention by using heavy machinery. Neighbors eventually became suspicious and reported Li to the authorities in October.

Li had big plans for his underground complex: he wanted to use the vast underground space as a garage, to store cars from his car rental service. In its current state, about 50 cars could be stored in the space, but he wanted to build it big enough for 100.

Basement extensions are illegal in Beijing, and no building permits are granted for such renovations. Builders instead rely upon guanxi (special relationships) to help avoid authorities.

Illegal basements in Beijing made headlines last February when one such illegal basement built by a representative of China’s National People’s Congress collapsed and opened up a massive sinkhole that forced 15 local residents to be evacuated from their homes.

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The hole opened up early Monday morning on Beijing East Road and is estimated to be ten square meters in diameter and one meter deep. Workers were seen putting up a temporary wall as someone approached the photographer who took the above pictures to force them to stop taking pictures (as seen in picture #3).

The sinkhole has caused traffic chaos in Nanjing, with traffic on the two-way street now just limited to one lane.

However, this isn’t the first time that a sinkhole has appeared on Beijing East Road. As a matter of fact, there have been four other sinkholes that have opened up while tunnel construction is underway:

• A 40 centimeter-deep sinkhole that opened at October 29 at 5:40am
• A 1.5 meter-deep sinkhole that opened at October 29 at 9am, trapping a passing ambulance
• A 3 meter-deep sinkhole that opened on November 2 in the afternoon
• A 1.6 meter-deep sinkhole that opened on November 10 at 8am

But as news reports tell us, the sinkholes don’t have anything to do with the subway construction. According to a spokesperson for the Nanjing Subway Construction Unit, Monday’s sinkhole is the result of heavy rains that have been falling on Nanjing.

Explanations for the other four sinkholes weren’t mentioned in the report.

Sinkholes resulting from subway construction in China is not limited to Nanjing. This past August, a 300 square meter sinkhole appeared in a densely-populated part of Dongguan that killed a worker underground, while Shenzhen has seen four sinkholes this year arising from subway construction-related causes.

Other Chinese fatalities resulting from subway tunnels collapse during construction include a Shenyang victim last month, and another in Nanning last October.

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Four people in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang Province were stunned when the ground underneath their feet gave way as they stood waiting at a bus top.

A security camera recorded the moment at 5:40pm on August 22 on Guxiang Boulevard in Harbin. One woman is seen clinging to a pipe after the collapse, while another woman and two men fell to the bottom of the three meter-deep hole.

Just prior to the collapse, a crowd of people are seen walking through, indicating this could have been even worse.

Some people at the scene helped the victims get out of the ten square meter hole, while others on the stairwell simply watched and then walked away.

The victims were sent to a Harbin hospital where they were treated for various injuries including sprains and abrasions. Police cordoned off an area 100 meters around the sinkhole as workers attempted to make repairs.

There still has been no official word as to what caused the sinkhole, although an investigation is said to be pending. The hole was repaired the day after it appeared, and reports say business in the area has returned to normal.

Sinkholes in China have become a regular occurrence.

This past May, two pedestrians were injured when a  two meter-deep sinkhole appeared beneath their feet in Duchang, Jiangxi Province. Jiangxi also had another sinkhole back in March when three students were swallowed by a three meter-deep hole in Pingxiang.

In June 2013, a grandmother and her grandson were swallowed up by a three meter-deep hole in Shenzhen. In June 2010, a women was swallowed up by a hole in Chengdu after rains had been pelting the city for days.

Here’s the video of the incident in Harbin:

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The fledging Dongguan subway system has suffered another setback after a massive sinkhole opened up that is close to consuming an entire building.

A sinkhole first appeared on August 12 near the Lianbang residential complex in Changping District during construction of the subway tunnel, but it grew dramatically today at 10:30am and now measures an estimated 300 square meters in size.

A worker underground at the time of the collapse was killed, the first known fatality associated with a sinkhole in Dongguan (though there have been many in neighboring Shenzhen). All nearby residents have been evacuated from their homes as a precaution.

Lianbang Plaza is population spot in Dongguan. The area around the construction and the sinkhole is the busiest in the area.

Today’s development is the latest in a series of sinkholes that have plagued Dongguan. On February 16, 2014, a sinkhole first appeared outside Lianbang Plaza, measuring 40 square meters is size and three meters deep. In June, another sinkhole appeared measuring 60 square meters in size and three meters deep.

Meanwhile, sinkholes have also been a mainstay in nearby Shenzhen, which has had four collapses just this year so far.

The precise moment of the collapse was caught on video, seen here:

Related:

• NPC Rep Builds Illegal Basement 18 Meters Deep, Leads to Massive Sinkhole
• Beijing Times Reporter Bribed Not To Report On Sinkhole
• Five People Hurt After Two Sinkholes in Two Days in Shenzhen
• Four-door Sedan Swallowed by Massive Shenzhen Sinkhole
• Another sinkhole in Shenzhen Swallows Up Two Vehicles
• Another Large Sinkhole Opens Up in Shenzhen

The post Video: Sinkhole in Dongguan So Big it Could Soon Swallow an Entire Residential Building appeared first on The Nanfang.

The sinkhole measured 1.6 meters deep, five meters wide, and six meters long. After the car was picked up by a crane, the area was cordoned off and a tarp was placed over the hole to keep the water out.

State media blamed the heavy rainfalls that have been plaguing the PRD. A local water supplier blamed the city’s underground pipe system, built in 1994, for causing erosion under city streets.

Over the past two years, sinkholes have popped up all over Shenzhen. In 2014 alone, ten sinkholes opened up throughout the city, killing some residents. By 2016, Shenzhen will have spent a total of RMB 2.4 billion to prevent sinkholes from occurring through “underground space management and ground collapse prevention” measures.

Related:

• Another Large Sinkhole Opens Up in Shenzhen
• Huge Sinkhole Opens in Shenzhen, Fortunately in a Green Belt
• Massive Sinkhole In Fujian Swallows Car
• Huge Sinkhole Appears in Dongguan
• Sinkhole in the Middle of a Guangzhou Road

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A sinkhole opened up in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, on January 24. It turns out it was created by a basement built illegally by Li Baojun, a representative of China’s National People’s Congress. The sinkhole forced 15 residents to be evacuated from their homes while a four-story house teetered precariously to one side. The hole was so wide it stretched out into the road in front.

Li had previously been penalized for making illegal renovations to his home last July.

Li had not obtained authorizations to build the basement, and many concerned residents had called the local chengguan hotline but their calls were not answered.

Crews have spent three days filling the 1.900-square meter hole with sand and cement. The street has since re-opened, and repairs are underway to fix the teetering home.

Related:

• No Elevator for Your 5th Floor Walkup? Man Builds His Own (Illegal) One
• Guy Builds a Forest on a Guangzhou Apartment Building to Hide Illegal Floors
• Demolition Begins on Hidden Forest House in Guangzhou
• Dongguan “castle in the sky” becomes latest controversial structure
• Police officer busted for having a decked-out illegal gambling den in Shenzhen

Photos: China News Network, iFeng

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A four-meter diameter sinkhole appeared at an intersection in Jinjiang on November 27 after a heavy transport truck drove over it. The driver of the car immediately following the truck was able to stop in time and avoid driving into the hole. But shortly afterward a white Kia K2 turned left right into the sinkhole that other drivers successfully avoided.

Two people in the car were able to escape as it teetered precariously over the hole. Mr Li, the driver, described the harrowing ordeal:

It scared me so much that I started sweating all over. My head went blank all of a sudden, I didn’t know what to do.

Not long afterwards, the vehicle flipped over and landed inside the hole as it kept widening. It was eventually pulled out using a crane.

Fujian was the scene of another two-meter deep sinkhole last February. Sinkholes are also somewhat common in Dongguan, and are so common in Beijing that reporters are bribed to prevent them from publishing stories about them.

Here are two GIFs from a traffic surveillance camera that shows the sinkhole first being created, and the white Kia driving into the hole:

Here is a television report on the incident:

Photos: Quanzhou Evening Report, Sina News Video

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Thankfully, no one was hurt, and repairs to fill the hole have already begun.

Earlier this year, a four-meter deep sinkhole appeared on the Dongguan highway to Huizhou. Another sinkhole in Changping appeared on the highway to Huizhou last February, causing injury to four people (seen below).

Photos: Nandu Dongguan, Yangcheng Evening Report

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