A slope was completed Saturday for using heavy machinery in the search for a male truck driver trapped in a sinkhole that appeared Tuesday in the city of Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Firefighters will now launch a full-scale effort to find the 74-year-old driver as soon as preparations are made.
The 4-meter-wide, 30-meter-long slope was constructed while spraying lime to solidify the soil as the ground at the site is soft.
At around 9:50 a.m. on Tuesday, the surface of a prefectural road collapsed at an intersection, creating the sinkhole. Damage was found in the upper part of an underground sewer pipe with a diameter of 4.7 meters, while water began to flow from another pipe, used for rainwater, according to the Saitama prefectural government.
After several subsequent collapses, the maximum width and depth of the hole reached about 40 meters and about 15 meters, respectively, according to local fire officials.
To reduce the amount of sewage water, the prefectural government continues to ask a total of about 1.2 million residents in 12 municipalities to refrain from using sewage systems, including drainage for baths and laundry.
It has also begun to discharge sewage water into the river, as well as water for dilution to prevent water quality deterioration.
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