An elderly couple has been taken to hospital after the car they were in fell into a sinkhole in South Korea on Thursday, emergency workers have said.
The 76-year-old woman suffered a cardiac arrest and was given CPR, the JoongAng Daily said.
Her pulse returned later, according to the JoongAng Ilbo.
Firefighters check the vehicle before moving it. Pic: Yonhap/AP
It is not clear what injuries, if any, the 82-year-old man suffered.
The couple’s white Tivoli “rolled over sideways, crashing into the sinkhole”, the Korea Herald said.
Pictures and video have been published of the vehicle lying on its side in the hole, which appeared to have opened up before they drove into it on a road in the Seodaemun district in western Seoul.
The SUV was later removed.
The JoongAng Daily said the pair were travelling along Seongsan-ro heading to the Seongsandaegyo Bridge when the hole opened at around 11.30am.
An investigation has been launched to find out what caused the sinkhole, the Korea Herald said.
Firefighters prepare to remove a car from a sinkhole that emerged in the middle of a road in Seoul. Pic: Yonhap/AP
Emergency services have been clearing the site and access to the area has been restricted, causing traffic congestion in the South Korean capital.
An Indian woman is still missing, six days after falling into a sinkhole in Kuala Lumpur when the pavement she was walking on collapsed.
The woman, identified as Ms Vijayaletchumy, fell 26 feet (8m). Police fear she may have been swept away by an underground water current in the Dang Wangi area of the Malaysian capital.
City authorities have cancelled Friday’s Merdeka Eve celebrations out of respect for the tourist who was reportedly on a two-month holiday with her family and was due to return home soon, cna.com said.
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In June, a 100-foot sinkhole opened up in a field in Illinois. No one was injured.
Sinkholes form when the rock beneath the surface, such as limestone, can naturally be dissolved by the groundwater within it. As the rock dissolves, caverns develop, Live Science said on its website.
When these caverns get so big that the land above can no longer support them, the surface collapses.
They can be as shallow as three feet (1m) deep, while the largest known example in Fengjie County in central China, measures nearly 2,200 feet (662 meters).
Almost 900 sinkholes were reported in South Korea between 2019 and 2023, the country’s ministry of land, infrastructure and transport said last year, and nearly half of them were caused by damaged sewer pipes.
