Busy Hong Kong road closed for a week as subsidence leaves huge 4-metre-deep pothole
- All lanes of Hai Tan Street between Yen Chow Street and Kweilin Street will remain closed to traffic until 6am on June 7
- Photos of a deep hole in front of residential building Seaside Sonata on Hai Tan Street began to circulate online on Saturday afternoon
Subsidence has forced the closure of a busy road in Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po district for a week, with a four-metre (13-foot) deep hole swallowing pedestrian barriers.
The Transport Department announced on Saturday that all lanes of Hai Tan Street between Yen Chow Street and Kweilin Street would remain closed to traffic until 6am on June 7, with affected bus routes to be redirected.
Photos of a deep hole in front of residential building Seaside Sonata on Hai Tan Street began to circulate online on Saturday afternoon, with a road sign and metal barriers having slipped into it.
However, a police spokeswoman said the force received a report about a pothole in the road on Friday afternoon. A security guard at Seaside Sonata had called police about the subsidence.
The Highways Department estimated the hole to be 12 metres long and eight metres wide, with a depth of four metres. No injuries have been reported.
Social media users were quick to complain about the state of the city’s roads as photos of the giant pothole circulated.
“Hong Kong roads nowadays, they become like this with a little rain,” a user named James Chan said on Facebook.
