China: Huge hole in busy road swallowed bus - Dead and missing (vid)

A giant hole has suddenly opened up on a busy Singapore mainland, the capital of Qinghai Province, in western China, and has literally swallowed a bus full of passengers.

Asphalt on a Singing road full of moving vehicles receded yesterday Monday at around 17:30 [local time · 11:30 Greek time]. The hole engulfed half of the bus on which the explosion occurred, according to Chinese public television CCTV.

A video released by the Chinese news agency China News Service shows strange passers-by trying to avoid a cavity formed in front of a stop, with the bus practically perpendicular to the hole.

Rescue operations are still under way, and an investigation is under way to determine the cause of the crash, according to the CCTV network, which said 16 injured people were taken to hospitals where they were being treated "in a stable condition".

Photographs released by the official China News Agency show members of rescue teams with heavy machinery in action and a crane as it lifts the bus from the hole, which opened in front of a hospital.

The collapsed section of road was about 80 square meters, New China said.

This is not the first such incident in the country.

In 2016, many passers-by fell into a hole that suddenly opened in a road section in the city of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province (central).

A search by the fire brigade led to the conclusion that the collapse was most likely due to a clogged stream below the road and that this section of the road network receded after rainfall.

In 2013, five people died when a 10-meter-deep hole suddenly opened in a road near an industrial zone in Shenzhen (south).

Source: sigmalive