Excavators and rescue personnel working to assemble a slope for rescue operations are seen on the web site the place a truck on January 28 plunged right into a sinkhole, trapping the automobile’s driver, in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture on February 1, 2025. Agence France-Presse
TOKYO — A truck cabin swallowed by a sinkhole in Japan has been present in a sewer pipe and should include the physique of its lacking driver, a hearth division official mentioned Wednesday.
Rescuers have been struggling to seek out the 74-year-old driver for the reason that truck plunged right into a chasm that appeared close to Tokyo two weeks in the past.
The sinkhole all of a sudden opened up at an intersection within the metropolis of Yashio throughout morning rush hour on January 28, swallowing the lorry.
READ: Rescuers construct slope to succeed in man in Japan sinkhole
“After specialists analyzed images taken with a drone… they mentioned there’s a cabin of a truck within the images and so they can’t rule out the chance that what seems to be inside is an individual,” native hearth division official Tomonori Nakazawa instructed AFP.
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However rescuers couldn’t enter the sewer pipe the place the truck cabin was noticed resulting from water stream and excessive ranges of hydrogen sulfide gasoline, he mentioned.
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Governor Motohiro Ono of Saitama prefecture, the place Yashio is positioned, mentioned it would take about three months to construct a short lived bypass pipe to cease water stream.
READ: Large sinkhole swallows Japan metropolis road
Rescuers should now look forward to the completion of the bypass earlier than accessing the truck cabin, he instructed reporters late Tuesday.
Sequence of occasions since a sinkhole appeared on a busy intersection in Yashio metropolis outdoors Tokyo on January 28 | Agence France-Presse
A 30-meter (98-foot) slope had allowed rescuers to ship heavy tools into the outlet, with 1.2 million residents requested to briefly reduce on showers and laundry to stop leaking sewage from hindering the operation.
However a superb quantity of sewage water was found beneath the slope, which, mixed with rain, led to the rescue mission being suspended.
On Sunday, the search contained in the sinkhole was referred to as off to deal with the close by sewer pipe the place the truck’s cabin was noticed, Kyodo Information and different shops reported.
Round 2,600 instances of street sinkholes in 2022 had been attributable to sewer pipes, in accordance with native media. Most had been small, at solely 50 centimeters (20 inches) deep or much less.
In 2016, a large sinkhole round 30 meters broad and 15 meters deep appeared on a busy road in Fukuoka metropolis, triggered by close by subway development.
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Nobody was damage and the road reopened per week after staff toiled across the clock.
