It will take a few days, but the City of Regina has started work on fixing a sinkhole estimated to be 25 feet deep and 20 feet wide.
The sinkhole appeared on Monday afternoon at the corner of Elphinstone and Avonhurst with a truck getting caught as the earth crumbled underneath it.
Pat Wilson, the City of Regina’s director of water, waste and environmental services, spoke with reporters Tuesday afternoon saying this just didn’t happen overnight.
“Our clay soils actually are part of what makes this a very, very rare occurrence.” Wilson said. Typically, water makes its way to the surface and then we know there’s a problem and we can go looking for it. In this case, it appears likely that the pipe cracked and started to erode the soil.“ With a large broken sewer trunk line being to blame, the soil was going out through the pipe and therefore nothing came to the surface. That would have happened over a period of time.”
She adds aging infrastructure may have also played a role as the pipe in question was over 60 years old with the lifespan of the pipe being around 75.
Wilson estimates it will be at least three days before traffic in the area can get back to normal. In the meantime, Regina police and the City are asking people to stay away from the hole as it could get bigger if people are around it as the ground is soft in the area.
