Toronto school bus falls into 10-foot sinkhole (PHOTOS)

Feb 7 2023, 5:49 pm

Spontaneous sinkholes continue to cause problems around Toronto as the city struggles to repair all of its aging roads and water mains, resulting in lengthy street closures, damage to local businesses, and plenty of severe vehicular damage.

Now, they’ve come for the children.

sinkhole toronto

Toronto firefighters estimate that the city’s latest high-profile sinkhole is roughly 10 feet wide and four feet deep. Photo via Rebecca Grove.

Toronto Fire officials say that a sinkhole roughly 10 feet wide and four feet deep (so far) was found beneath a school bus in the Queen Street East and Balsam Avenue area on Monday afternoon.

The vehicle was parked outside a school in the Beaches, waiting to pick up students and take them home, when the hole opened up around 4:30 pm.

Fortunately, no kids were aboard the bus when it unexpectedly sank into the road.

“The bus was empty and was parking for end-of-school pick-up. No kids inside. The driver is fine,” said crossing guard Rebecca Grove to blogTO of the incident.

“I didn’t hear a thing. It made no noise.”

Grove, who was stationed roughly half a block away from the bus when it sank, said the situation didn’t feel like an emergency, as first responders took more than an hour to arrive.

It did, however, cause a bit of a traffic jam, and will likely continue to do so until the road is fixed.

As of Tuesday morning, the northbound and southbound lanes of Balsam Avenue from Sycamore Place to Queen Street East remain closed off “due to emergency road repairs.”

Fire officials have yet to say what caused the sinkhole, but are investigating the possibility of a gas leak or water main break.

Lauren O'NeilLauren O'Neil

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