PAWTUCKET, R.I. (WPRI) — Crews are working to repair a large water main “blowout” in Pawtucket early Thursday morning.
Officials responding to London Avenue around 3 a.m. saw that a pickup truck had been partially swallowed up by a resulting sinkhole.
The truck has since been removed so crews with the Pawtucket Water Supply Department can get to work repairing the 8-inch water main.
“With the weather going hot and cold and the ground shifts a little bit, sure enough, they find a weak spot especially on a little hit like this and it’ll go,” Alan Gagnon with the water department said.
“But this one, not a small crack but a big hole that blew out, so a lot of water, a lot of undermining road getting torn up all the way down the road, our big thing now is locating exactly where the leak is,” he continued.
The owner of the truck told 12 News that he was in the vehicle when the road buckled underneath him.
“My neighbor woke me up at about 3 o’clock in the morning. There was a lot of water but I didn’t think it was a sinkhole. I tried to move my truck, I saw the water was right where my truck was parked. As soon as I moved it up, that’s when I went through the sinkhole, and I had to jump from the truck because a lot of water was coming up,” Carlos Rodriguez recalled.
London Avenue is closed in both directions from Grand Avenue to Orient Avenue while crews are on scene.
No injuries were reported
