Two Injured After Sinkhole Opens Directly Below SUV In South Korea 

By Edward Era Barbacena 

A sinkhole suddenly opened and swallowed a SUV in South Korea’s capital on Thursday, injuring the two occupants, emergency workers said.

Photos from the scene showed a white sport utility vehicle engulfed in the eight-foot-deep hole that appeared on a street in the central part of Seoul.

Emergency workers rescued the vehicle’s 82-year-old male driver and a 76-year-old female passenger. No one else was hurt in the incident, according to Seoul’s Seodaemun district fire station.

The conditions of the injured victims were not immediately known. Traffic in the Seondaemun area continued to be restricted as of Thursday evening as workers and officials repaired the damaged road and investigated the cause of the sinkhole.

Last week, a 48-year-old tourist from India disappeared in Malaysia’s capital when pavement collapsed beneath her and caused her to fall into a 26-foot-deep sinkhole. Officials said that she may have been swept away by an underground water current.

South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport told lawmakers last year that at least 879 sinkholes were reported in the country from 2019 to June 2023. Nearly half of those sinkholes were caused by damaged sewer pipes, the ministry said at the time.