A massive sinkhole opened in the heart of Ottawa on Wednesday morning, forcing an evacuation of the downtown district just weeks before a coterie of world leaders — including President Barack Obama — is scheduled to arrive in the Canadian capital for a summit.
Canadian media outlets reported that the sinkhole tore across the span of a major thoroughfare; afterwards, passersby detected the odor of natural gas in the air.
“You could smell it in the area immediately, and people were running away from it, you could tell something was amiss,” one man told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “I caught the hole expanding and the car falling in and the gas just roiling the water, causing the dirt underneath the street to erode and collapse.”
[CBC]
More Must-Reads From TIME
- The Man Who Thinks He Can Live Forever
- Why We Can't Get Over the Roman Empire
- The Final Season of Netflix’s Sex Education Sends Off a Beloved Cast in Style
- How Russia Is Recruiting Cubans to Fight in Ukraine
- The Case for Mediocrity
- Paul Hollywood Answers All of Your Questions About The Great British Baking Show
- How Canada and India's Relationship Crumbled
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
