TTC vehicle submerged in sinkhole created by water main break

'Mission accomplished': Car pulled from sinkhole A soggy TTC vehicle has been recovered after being swallowed by a sinkhole earlier in the day.

A large water main break in the Port Lands this morning sent water gushing and caused a sinkhole that swallowed up a TTC vehicle.

Water could be seen spewing over the roadway near Logan Avenue and Commissioners Street in the early hours Tuesday. A few hours later, a widening sinkhole gobbled up the white sedan of a TTC supervisor who was at the scene to assess the situation.

“What we’ve got here is a 300-millimetre or 12-inch water main that’s about 98, 100 years old. It’s ruptured and what’s happened here is that it’s created a void under the road,” Bill Shea of Toronto Water told CP24 at the scene. “We had a TTC vehicle that passed over that void and the front wheel got stuck. Thank goodness the driver of the vehicle made it out. That’s the most important thing.”

As the rushing water further compromised the roadway, a CP24 camera caught the vehicle slipping further and further into the hole. By around 7 a.m., the vehicle was almost completely submerged, with just a small part of the back end sticking upright out of the water. By 7:15 a.m., the only sign of the completely submerged vehicle was the glow of its orange lights, visible from the water’s surface.

“The void opened up more due to the weight of the vehicle. What happens is the water is coming out with such force that it excavates the soil and pushes it out on to the surface. So what you get is a big excavation, or a big hole in this case,” Shea said.

The Wheel-Trans supervisor became trapped while investigating reported flooding in the area, TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said.

“(He) went back out to check out the puddle because he was afraid it would have some impact on our morning service for Wheel-Trans.”

The supervisor was not injured in the incident.