Society

New sinkhole appears in north China city

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-08-13 22:18

TAIYUAN - A third sinkhole appeared Friday in the busy downtown area of Taiyuan, capital city of north China's Shanxi Province, after two others caused the partial collapse of a four-storey hospital building Thursday.

No casualties have been reported, as people had time to run out of the building after feeling the building inclining.

Xinhua reporters on Friday saw police telling passers-by to avoid the area.

One police officer complained that it was difficult to stop pedestrians and cyclists passing through the densely populated area.

The new hole is about 20 square meters in area and 6 meters deep and 100 meters away from the other two.

The smaller of first two is 7 meters long, 4 meters wide and 6 meters deep. The bigger one is 15 meters long, 12 meters wide and 8 meters deep.

Wang Buyun, commander of the emergency headquarters set up to address the issue, said the holes were caused by water leaking from an underground pipeline, which led to a loosening of the earth beneath the road.

He said the Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital, in front of which the sinkholes appeared, has a 5,000-square meter underground quake shelter, which was used as an underground hospital in the 1970s.

"We will build supporting structures and completely fill in the underground shelter to consolidate the ground," he said.

The main hospital building is 30-stories high and is surrounded by five other high-rise buildings, each of which is over 20 stories.

"We are checking the safety of the geological structures of the high-rise buildings' foundations to see if people need to be evacuated," said Wang.

The ground sinking disrupted water, power and natural gas supplies in some downtown areas Thursday.

By noon Friday, workers had fixed the water pipelines but electricians had not finished repairing power cables.