A giant sinkhole which swallowed a chunk¹ of road the length of a city block in the southwestern Japanese city of Fukuoka has been filled mere² days after it appeared, a testament³ to Japanese engineering and efficiency. 

 

位于日本西南的福冈市街头出现一处巨型地陷，大面积道路被吞噬。地陷发生短短几天后便被填补，彰显了日本的工程实力和效率。
 

 

After the sinkhole appeared on November 8, subcontractors worked around the clock to fill in the 30 meter wide, 15 meter deep hole by the 12th with a mixture of sand and cement. 

 

The job was complicated by the water which had seeped⁴ in from sewage pipes destroyed by collapsing⁵ sections of road. 

 

After that it only took another 48 hours to reinstall all utilities -- electricity, water, sewage, gas and telecommunication⁶ lines -- and to resurface the road. There were no reports of injuries.

 

Motohisa Oda, a crisis management officer from the city of Fukuoka, told CNN that the underground construction work may have triggered the collapse⁷. 

 

The gaping⁸ hole - which started off as two smaller ones before merging⁹ into the larger cavity - appeared 300 meters from the JR Hakata station, one of the city's main transport hubs. 

 

The mayor of Fukuoka, Soichiro Takashima, said the affected¹⁰ ground had been strengthened by a factor of 30 because of the sand and cement refill. 

 

Previously¹¹ comprised largely of sand, the soil's composition was suspected to be a part of the cause for the huge hole, according to local civil engineering experts.

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