Videos from the scene showed a white SUV swallowed up in a 2.5-meter-deep hole that appeared on a street in central Seoul.
Rescuers rescued the 82-year-old driver of the vehicle and a 76-year-old female passenger. No one else was injured in the incident, which happened around 11:20 a.m., according to the Seoul Seodaemun District Fire Department.
The condition of the injured victims was not immediately known. Traffic in the Seondaemun area continued to be restricted Thursday night as workers and officials repaired the damaged road and investigated the cause of the sinkhole.
South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport told lawmakers last year that at least 879 sinkholes had been reported in the country between 2019 and June 2023. Nearly half of those sinkholes were caused by damaged sewer pipes, the ministry said at the time.
Last week, a 48-year-old Indian tourist suffered a similar fate in the Malaysian capital when the roadway collapsed beneath her, sending her into an eight-metre-deep sinkhole. Authorities said she may have been swept away by an underground current of water.
