College Street sinkhole safe but under surveillance
Asinkhole opened up underneath a pickup truck at 3850 College Street on Monday night. According to Sherbrooke Emergency Services Director Stéphane Simoneau, the area was quickly analyzed and judged to not be in need of evacuation. Located between the house on the property and a nearby garage, the hole was roughly six feet in diameter by Tuesday afternoon and more than eight feet deep
“We received a call at around 7:30 p.m. about a vehicle that was in the process of falling in a hole,” Simoneau said, calling the hole “significant”. The fire chief explained that the truck had to be pulled out with a crane in order to avoid further collapse and damage to the vehicle.
The fire chief said that the city is currently working with engineers from the Ministry of Public Safety to determine the cause of the collapse in order to determine the best solution.
“We talked about all kinds of things, including the idea that it might be as a result of old mines in the area,” Simoneau said, adding that the discovery of an old wooden support beam in the hole is making that theory look fairly accurate.
Teams of Engineers will be on site at the property to evaluate the condition of the ground and the extent of any possible underground tunnels today. The city will provide an update on the state of their evaluations as of 3pm.
Reiterating that the mine idea is just a hypothesis at this point, Simoneau remarked that at present the situation seems quite similar to the collapse that happened on College Street in 2012.
“There were many mines in the area,” the fire chief said. “This is probably not the same mine.”