It was a shock for three drivers after a sinkhole in the south of Chicago swallowed their vehicles into the road Thursday morning.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the sinkhole was caused by a broken water pipe in the sewer that was nearly a century old.
The sinkhole was witnessed firsthand by Olaide Giwa when she stood by as her new 2013 Dodge Charger sunk deep into the road. The 57-year-old nurse was heading for work from her son’s house when she saw a driver with a truck having a hard time moving the vehicle. She then saw the truck sink down into the 30-foot-wide sinkhole. Olaide also witnessed her brother’s car sinking. “I wanted to back up my own car. They say ‘You can’t do that. The third one is going in at any time,” she said.
The driver in the truck, Pete Krivokuca, suffered minor injuries and was taken to a hospital, his father Mirko told the paper: “He called me. He’s all right. He don’t break nothing.”
Spokesman Tom LaPorte of the Water Management Department said that the sinkhole was likely caused by a centuries old water pipe that broke. “It broke and undermined the street,” LaPorte said. “If you have water under pressure that’s washing away dirt under the street, then you have a void beneath the street that causes the collapse.”
The sinkhole has been one of many others in need of fixing as part of a rebuilding program that Mayor Rahm Emanuel chose to spend the city budget on, increasing the water rates for the next four years.