Sawt Falasteen - Massive sinkhole in Bangkok street forces evacuations

Just outside a local police station and Vajira Hospital in a residential district of Bangkok, a roughly 50-meter (160-foot) hole pulled down power lines and exposed a burst pipe gushing water, AFP journalists saw.

Dozens of police and city officials cordoned off the site, while a pickup truck teetered precariously on the edge of the hole.

Suriyachai Rawiwan, director of Bangkok's disaster prevention department, told AFP at the scene that the collapse was likely linked to recent heavy rain and a leaky pipe.

"There was a leak in the water pipe -- water from the pipe eroded (earth) under the road so this incident happened," he said, adding that there were no known casualties.

"The water that eroded brought some soil that dropped down to an under-construction subway station, causing the collapse," Suriyachai added.

The tunnel is part of an underground service being built by the state-run Mass Rapid Transit Authority, which said it would investigate the cause of the cave-in.

Suriyachai said the local police station facing the collapsed road was evacuated.

Senior police officer Sayam Boonsom also said he had ordered the evacuation of nearby apartment blocks.

"The location is at a station, and the soil was sucked into the site... it collapsed," Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt told AFP at the scene.

A video posted on social media and verified by AFP shows several people running from a construction area on Samsen Road as the street cracks open and collapses, revealing a water-filled hole.

Vajira Hospital, a teaching facility for one of Thailand's top medical universities, said in a Facebook post it was suspending outpatient services, adding that they would "resume as soon as possible".

Noppadech Pitpeng, a 27-year-old hospital staffer who lives in a nearby building, said he was frightened by a rumbling sound on Wednesday morning that woke him up.

"The sound was like an electricity pole collapsing and my whole flat shook," he said, while carrying clothes in a large bucket out of his building.

T.Khatib--SF-PST