sinkhole

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

In the evening of last Sunday, May 4 a rather sizable sinkhole opened up at the corner of Somerled and Mariette in the the Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough.

The hole has been described as “car-sized” by some. It’s not quite that big, but is deep.

Deep enough, in fact, that the watermain well below street level is visible, with water still gushing out of it by Monday afternoon.

And that, workers on the scene explained, was the problem. The sinkhole was caused by a broken watermain that nobody knew about because it was underground, and had not, as yet, caused any problems at street level. But over time the leaking water eroded what lay beneath the asphalt until that section of road collapsed.

The sinkhole has been fenced off, and the intersection is closed to traffic, with the 102 bus being diverted to Monkland eastbound, and to Fielding for the westbound bus.

Residents in the area did notice a slight drop in water pressure, but by Monday afternoon the city decided that there was no reason to close off water in the area completely.

The repair work should take a couple of weeks. n