Fears increase for the health and safety of a driver who spent almost four days trapped In JapanAfter opening the road and swallowed the truck, he was driving.
The 74 -year -old driver, who was not identified, first trapped in the chasm When open in an animated intersection In the city of Yashimo, just outside Tokyo, Tuesday morning.
He was aware and communicated with rescuers earlier, but has not responded since Tuesday afternoon, according to Yashio’s fire department, Yoshifumi Hashiguchi.
The rescue teams worked 24 hours a day to reach humans. They were able to recover the truck bed from the abyss, but the truck cabin remains buried under the debris and the ground.
The first speakers try to save the driver from a truck that fell into a chasm in a street in Yashio, northeast of Tokyo, Tuesday January 28, 2025.
Kenichiro Kojima / Kyodo News via AP
When it was formed for the first time, the chasm was about the size of a swimming pool and about 33 feet wide and 20 feet deep. But unstable soil, fleeing water pipes and bulk debris increased the hole about four times wide, according to local officials.
“The interior Gouge and it grows every day“Said a manager of the Sanamament Works of Saitama Prefecture Works Works.
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It is believed that the hole was caused by the rupture of an underground sewer hose. Wastewater from the damaged pipe flooded the hole, showing a second abyss on Thursday.
According to The Guardian, the crews are now changing tactics and have started to build a 30 -meter -long ramp that they hope will allow them to reach man.
“We plan to build a slope from a safer place so that we can send heavy equipment,” said local firefighters, Tetsuji Sato, at the exit, calling the The functioning around the “extremely dangerous” chasm.
The firefighters work to save a truck driver after his vehicle was swallowed by a chasm in an intersection of the prefecture road, in the city of Yashio, Saitama prefecture on January 28, 2025.
Jiji Press / AFP via Getty Images
Meanwhile, the soil has become so unstable in the region that residents living in around 200 neighboring houses were ordered to evacuate, and 1.2 million people in the region were invited to reduce water consumption, To prevent more sewers from fleeing from the entrance to the hole.
According to the local media Kyodo, once the ramp is finished, the heavy equipment will be taken into the hole to eliminate some of the debris and the rescuers will then be able to enter the abyss to continue their research.
When the driver is withdrawn, experts go into the abyss and inspect the sewer system.
The Ministry of Lands, Infrastructures and Transport has ordered a national inspection of sewer systems. In one of the most subject to disasters in the world, the abyss has raised concerns about aging infrastructure.
Most of the main public infrastructure in Japan were built during rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s. The wastewater pipe in Yashiro is about 40 years old.
– With a file from the Associated Press
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