Rescuers in Japan try to reach the driver trapped in a abyss for days

Emergency workers find it difficult to save a truck driver who was swallowed by a abyss more than two days ago in a city just north of Tokyo.

The 74 -year -old man stopped near an intersection in the prefecture of Saitama when the abyss suddenly opened under the road, swallowing the truck, according to a witness interviewed by the local media.

The driver was alive immediately after the truck sank into the hole, responding to nearby rescuers, according to the NHK public broadcaster. However, a few hours later, a mud flow inside the hole dropped dirt and rubble on the vehicle, buried it. The man did not respond to the later attempts to contact.

The rescue efforts were complicated by the fragility of the soil around the hole. A second hole that emerged nearby Tuesday merged with the first Thursday early Thursday, forming a larger abyss. The collapsed area now extends to about 65 feet in diameter.

An official of firefighters said Thursday that the hole had deepened and that the front section of the truck, where the driver would be trapped, was no longer visible. “The situation is extremely dangerous, and we cannot send many rescuers,” he said. “We will try to save him as soon as possible.”

Firefighters are considering using heavy machines to clean up dirt and debris in order to access the trapped driver. On Wednesday, a large crane was able to lift part of the truck loading bed on the surface, but the driver was not found in this section of the vehicle.

Local authorities have said that the collapse had been triggered by a darkened sewer pipe under the road which transports wastewater to a nearby treatment center. Damage to the pipeline prompted the prefecture to issue a directive for 1.2 million residents in the region to refrain from using water.

Routine inspections of the underwater sewer system, carried out every five years, did not indicate an immediate need for repairs, according to a Saitama official. In the most recent inspection, carried out during the 2021 fiscal year, a certain corrosion was detected, but it was not considered an urgent problem, he said.

In response to the incident, the Japanese Ministry of Lands, Infrastructures, Transport and Tourism said that it had called for emergency inspections for similar infrastructure, in particular those linked to water treatment plants Large -scale worn.