Search for woman swallowed by sidewalk in Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian authorities are trying to rescue a woman who fell into an eight-metre deep hole on a busy road in Kuala Lumpur.

A 48-year-old Indian woman was sitting on a bench on the side of the road in Jalan India Masjid when the ground beneath her suddenly collapsed, according to local police.

Videos on social media showed crowds of people watching as rescue workers tried to force their way into the hole. Some were using ladders, while others were using hammers and diggers to try to clear the way.

There seemed to be no sign of the woman.

The Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department said it received a distress call at 08:22 local time (00:22 GMT) and sent 15 firefighters to the scene.

Operation commander Mohammad Rizwan Akbar told local media that a search and rescue operation was underway.

“The Malaysian Special Tactical Operations and Rescue (STORM) team and K9 unit are on the scene,” he said.

Ninety personnel from various other agencies joined the operation, said Assistant Local Police Commissioner Suleiman Efendi Suleiman.

“We will look at CCTV footage and take witness statements to get a clearer picture of what happened,” he said.

The BBC has contacted the Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Department for comment.

Sinkholes are usually formed when groundwater dissolves rocks on the surface, causing a hole to form.

Although there is no accurate global data, geologists say the phenomenon is reasonably common. Human casualties are extremely rare.

One of the worst recent sinkhole disasters in terms of human casualties occurred in Canada in 2010, when a family of four died after a huge sinkhole swallowed their entire home near Montreal.

The world’s largest sinkhole is the Xiaoshai Tianqing sinkhole in southwest China. Researchers believe it is 660 meters deep and was formed more than 128,000 years ago.