A large sinkhole has appeared in Meridian, Mississippi, tearing through an iHop restaurant parking lot and swallowing more than ten cars.
The sinkhole was estimated to be 15 feet deep, 600 feet long and 50 feet wide. The crater tore through the parking lot last Saturday night, scaring restaurant employees and patrons. Fortunately, there were no reports of injuries due to the accident.
"Everything was sudden and quick," Noah Mathis, who was at the restaurant at the time, recalled. "They were slamming their forks down from eating and they were sprinting outside as quick as they could."
Local stations reported that witnesses told of hearing a loud series of booms before the power went out, followed by the cave-in. Emergency responders were called to the scene around 7:15 PM that Saturday. Officials said that about 15 cars were found submerged in the mud.
Emergency personnel said that an underground drain pipe collapsed for reasons still unknown, and Mississippi officials are still determining what could have caused it.
"The cause of the sinkhole is still under investigation, and our primary concern continues to be the safety of our guests and team members," said iHOP spokesman Craig Hoffman, who expressed relief that no one had been hurt by the incident. He added that the restaurant will remain closed until it has been fully repaired.
This is not the first time sinkholes have happened in Mississipi. Last April, a sinkhole cracked open on Highway 6 near Jackson Avenue and Chuky Mullins Drive.
"We started getting some reports this morning about a little "sag" in the roadway, a little settle in the roadway. And then we got a call from the Oxford City Police saying that the road had fell in," said Brian Childs, Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) official.
MDOT workers eventually found that the cause for the sink hole was a drain pipe about thirty feet under the street. Though fortunately, no vehicles fell into the huge crater and no one was injured.
"We're going to dig down to that and try to repair that by pouring a concrete collar around it," said Childs on the plan to repair the hole at the time.
Photo: Eric Heather Haddox | Flickr
