[delmarco]

How funny and scary is this?
It happened in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn....



link here:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/27/roa....ap/index.html

or read it here:

SUV swallowed by sinkhole

Monday, March 27, 2006; Posted: 4:10 p.m. EST (21:10 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- A city street collapsed under a sports utility vehicle early Monday, leaving the vehicle nose down into a deep sinkhole that officials said was caused by a water main break.

The driver of the SUV escaped without serious injuries but was taken to a hospital for treatment of shock, said Fire Department spokesman Brian Conlon.

From street level, the vehicle was barely visible inside the 12-foot-wide hole Monday morning. It came to rest atop a gas main, which was capped off by KeySpan Corp., and workers were able to remove the SUV by the early afternoon, said Andrew Troisi, a spokesman for the Office of Emergency Management.

The damage to the street was probably more extensive than was visible, since water leaking from the 8-inch main could have been washing away soil beneath the street for days, said Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

"It's unlikely that the only part of the roadway that was damaged was that car-shaped hole," he said.

Michaels said emergency contractors would break up the road to determine the extent of the damage. Part of a subway line running beneath the road was also temporarily shut down.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.