Chaos seized Bangkok In seconds, when one of its busiest avenues collapsed as if it were sand. The Earth gave in and swallowed cars, patrolmen, light posts and part of the pavementleaving a crater in the middle of the city.
The scene was recorded in front of the Vajira Hospital and a police station in the Dusit district. Witnesses recorded with their phones how a truck was on the edge of the abyss, while neighbors and passers -by shouted terrified. In minutes, the circulation was interrupted and hundreds of people were evacuated by caution.
Although the magnitude of the hole made the worst fear, the authorities confirmed that There were no fatal or injured victims. However, scare and uncertainty dominated the day, since the dimension of the undercut And its proximity with sensitive buildings lit all alarms.
What is a undercut and how it occurs
A undercut is nothing more than a Sudden land collapse. It usually appears when the water – whether due to rains, leaks or broken pipes – drags the earth under the surface and generates a cavity. When the weight of the street or constructions no longer finds support, it collapses.
In this case, Thai engineers suspect that a water filtration from a damaged pipe and the works of the Metro They would have contributed to weakening the subsoil. The result was a Crater of almost 50 meters deep and more than 25 wide, which literally “devoured” part of Samsen Avenue.
Similar phenomena have been seen in other parts of the world: since Guatemalawhere a hole of more than 30 meters in diameter was opened in the city in 2010, to incidents in Florida or China. In all cases, the combination of water, unstable land and human activity ends up being the trigger.
The rescue operation in Bangkok
The deployment was immediate. Firefighters, police, engineers and municipal gangs worked for hours to stabilize the area. Cranes, sand and concrete trucks were used To try to stop the advance of the sinking, although at first nothing seemed enough.
The governor of Bangkok, Chadchart Sittipunt, acknowledged that the greatest concern was in the Police Station and Hospitalkey institutions for the community. Both buildings They were evacuated Preventively, and the hospital decided not to admit new patients until pouoximo warning.
Meanwhile, several patrols were trapped at the bottom of the holeand the images of the sunken vehicles quickly went viral on social networks. “We were lucky that it was early and there would be not so much transit,” said an officer on the scene.
He area is still closed, While specialists analyze structural damage and seek to determine precisely what caused such a collapse. Although the initial reports point to the works of the subway and the breakage of a pipe, there is still no definitive official version.
Source: Ambito
