Car plunges off bridge into riverbank as driver fails to notice gaping hole
A driver plunged into a river when he failed to notice the gigantic hole on a collapsing bridge caused by heavy rainfall. Dashcam footage of another motorist who stopped short of the massive void shows the white SUV driving straight into it while travelling on the Ha-Mu Expressway in Heilongjiang, China, at around 8:50 am on August 3. The driver was speeding up in an attempt to overtake the car filming without noticing a large part of the road ahead was missing. Despite the driver visibly slamming the brakes, the car could not stop in time and it fell directly into the break. Eyewitnesses from the nearby city of Harbin claimed the flooded river tore off a large section of the road and carried it away just five minutes before the accident. A second driver of a black SUV who failed to see the collapsed highway in time and fell in as well. Bystanders were seen rushing over to rescue the owner of the white vehicle who seems to be unharmed.Several men were standing on the edge of the crater as he attempted to pull himself up by loose wires to avoid getting swept away by the flooded river. It is currently unclear if whoever was aboard the black SUV was injured but police said there were no casualties. The bridge, which crumbled due to the heavy rainfall during a severe storm, has reportedly been cleared and closed to traffic in both directions. Following the incident, the local Flood Control and Drought Relief Centre raised the flood warnings from Level 4 to Level 3, advising all motorists to be wary while travelling.