Sinkhole swallows car in downtown St. Louis

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A white car was swallowed by a sinkhole at 6th Street north of Olive Thursday (Credit: KMOV)

ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) – A sinkhole swallowed a car in downtown St. Louis Thursday morning.

The sinkhole opened up on Sixth Street north of Olive before 7 a.m.

The owners of the car told News 4 they were coming back from the gym when they noticed their car was swallowed by the sinkhole.

"By the time we got out, people were already standing around the hole," said Jordan Westerberg, the car's owner.

Greg Prater, a city street and traffic inspector, told News 4 it appeared the eight-inch water main had been broken for some time because there was so much erosion. The city’s water commissioner Curtis Skouby, said they don’t yet know if the main was broken before the street collapsed.

"As we expose more of the hole, excavate and clean it up, we will try to determine what happened. At this point it’s a street collapse for whatever reason," said Skouby.

Prater and Skouby both said there had recently been a repair to a water main on the same street,

A rotator on a tow truck was used to remove the car from the sinkhole because a standard tow truck couldn’t come within 25 feet of the sinkhole.

Prater said it will take weeks before the street is repaired.

No one was injured.

No other details have been released.

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