'Clever' wheelie bin act reveals hidden danger on Aussie roads
The bin was spotted on Wednesday morning in Sydney's harbourside suburb of Mosman after a resident had placed it over a sinkhole. While it appeared small at first, there were major concerns it would be concealing a much bigger, and potentially dangerous, problem.
"It was a significant sinkhole," Councillor Simon Menzies told Yahoo News. "The resident got to it very early and it was small, but the concern was someone would have driven over the top of it, and the whole thing could have collapsed and the car fallen in."
After the alarm was raised to council, workers were quickly called out to Cardinal Street to repair the issue and "it's all fixed up now".
"The bin trick was a great idea... it was clever... It stopped anybody driving into it and stopped potentially a pedestrian crossing the road from falling into it, or losing a dog down there," Menzies said. "Council staff will be keeping a very close eye on the streets to see if there is any systemic problem there."
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Sinkholes are caused by underground erosion and water is the driving force behind it. Sinkholes are particularly dangerous when this erosion occurs under roads or buildings, meaning weakened surfaces suddenly collapse in on itself. Storms increase the likelihood of sinkholes occurring but they can happen at anytime.
A major tourist road near the Victorian alps was closed in November after a sinkhole opened up and created chaos, forcing travellers to take a three and a half hour journey rather than a 50-minute trip due to the road closure. Days of heavy rain last year left a 10-metre wide sinkhole in Sydney's Dover Heights and workers were evacuated months earlier when a sinkhole opened up beneath an office building close to the city's M6 freeway.
There have been several sinkholes around the country, but thankfully they are "not common", Menzies said, especially compared to other parts of the world. However, the danger lies in their ability to develop without any sign — meaning they are hard to predict, pop up unannounced and occur very suddenly. This was the experience for Gold Coast driver Riina Haapala, an international student in Finland, who woke up to find her car had fallen nose-first into a deep sinkhole.
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