Florence sinkhole: Cars swallowed after stretch of road collapses

Dozens of cars were buried in the hole after a pipe burst underground

An underground water mains break along Florence's picturesque Arno River has created a 200-metre-long sinkhole that buried dozens of parked cars.

Firefighters asked residents of nearby palazzi to evacuate voluntarily, as there was no water or lighting in the area.

Hours after the pre-dawn break, authorities were trying to determine on Wednesday whether the weakened asphalt could withstand the weight of a crane to extract the waterlogged cars that fell into the hole.

Mayor Dario Nardella stressed that the underground flooding was the result of a gash in a diameter pipe, one of the major water conduits in the neighbourhood, and not a leak in the banks of the Arno.

The scene is near the famed Ponte Vecchio bridge, a favourite spot for tourists shopping for jewellery.

Sinkholes can be months or even years in the making, as groundwater slowly eats away at rocks like limestone that can be dissolved by water. Then an enormous hole suddenly replaces what everyone thought was solid ground.

The Florence incident, however, appears to have been relatively mild compared to some sinkhole disasters.

In 2010, for example, a 60ft wide and 30ft deep hole suddenly appeared in Guatemala City, killing at least one person and swallowing a three-storey building.

In February 2013 Jeff Bush was going to bed in his home in Seffner, Florida, when a sinkhole suddenly swallowed him and the rest of his bedroom. Attracted by his screams, his brother Jeremy jumped into the hole and got stuck himself. Jeremy Bush was eventually rescued. Jeff Bush, however, was not so lucky. Rescuers spent three days searching for him, but his remains were never found.

And sinkholes have rendered some towns uninhabitable. The lead and zinc mining that once made the fortune of Picher, Oklahoma, eventually created so many sinkholes that no-one could safely live there.