Crews pulled a car out of a huge sinkhole in South Amboy, New Jersey Tuesday afternoon - and some neighbors still were not being allowed back in their homes.
Around 6:15 a.m. Tuesday, authorities were alerted about the 20-foot-deep sinkhole that opened up on Gordon Street. Throughout the day, it was a bad, tense scene - with people wondering why the ground collapsed and if there was still any danger.
Authorities said a broken water main that undermined the earth was to blame for the sinkhole.
A neighbor first called to report that his car had been stolen - but that was not what had happened at all. He discovered that it actually had been swallowed up by the sinkhole, along with part of his yard.
"My dad, he said around 6 o'clock, he heard some crackling, high winds — almost like a recycling truck, it sounded like," said Dawn Matthews, the daughter of the man who lost his car. "He looked to the front and he didn't see a recycling truck, but then he went to the back, and saw in the back of the house, the neighbor's fence was kind of going down, and saw that part of road collapsed."
About an hour later, more of the street collapsed. Video from the scene showed a small SUV covered in mud that appears to have been swallowed up as the road gave way.
"All of the utilities have been shut off to these houses, we've evacuated three houses and there's a car at the bottom of the hill," Fire Chief Mike Geraltowski said.
Comment: Sinkholes worldwide for the past month: