A large sinkhole has appeared in the southern English village of Godstone, which took many residents by surprise and forced authorities to evacuate residents from around 30 homes.
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00:00Residents living in Godstone Village were in shock after a large sinkhole appeared on
00:07High Street and began to expand further, forcing the evacuation of about 30 households.
00:14The sinkhole, which first appeared on Monday, grew to at least 20 meters by Tuesday, raising
00:19safety concerns in the area.
00:21The situation escalated on Wednesday when a second sinkhole emerged, prompting the Surrey
00:27County Council to declare it a major incident.
00:30The sinkhole's sort of taken us all by shock, I think.
00:33It's obviously stopped everything.
00:35It's very quiet for the first time in a very long time.
00:37We've lived here about six and a half years.
00:40Usually we've got trucks roaring past.
00:43It's always a busy street.
00:44In fact, the night of the sinkhole, from about 5.30ish, this whole road was packed with cars
00:50lining up to go into the M25 because of all the accidents and things there.
00:55So it's just lucky it didn't happen while all those cars were there, otherwise we'd
00:58have had something go through.
00:59The affected properties were built roughly three years ago on the site of a former sand
01:03quarry.
01:05Some residents believe that there are underground caves in the area, possibly contributing to
01:09the incident.
01:10We were just told to keep looking on social media for updates as to when we could return,
01:14but we haven't actually heard anything concrete from anybody that we're stable.
01:19I think a news outlet said yesterday that we've got underpinning on our property because
01:23it's new, so maybe more stable, but then an SES guy just told me that there's caves
01:27underneath here, so I actually don't know how stable it is.
01:31The Surrey County Council said investigations are ongoing and the site is being assessed
01:36by structural experts so that they can manage the risks and repair work better.
01:41They said water and electricity supply had been restored and more permanent repair work
01:46will be carried out once the site is deemed safe for workers.
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