London - Is your local municipality guilty of endless foot-dragging when it comes to road repairs?
Japan has shown what can be achieved with a bit of willpower – and a few tons of tarmac and cement.
A vast 100ft-wide (30m) sinkhole that opened up in a five-lane highway in Japan last week has already been mended.
Workers toiled around the clock to repair the 50ft-deep (15m) chasm – which was half the size of an Olympic swimming pool – after it appeared last Tuesday in the city of Fukuoka.
The construction work involved dumping huge amounts of wet cement and sand into the gaping hole and fixing electricity, gas and water lines. The street then reopened at 5am on Tuesday, in time for rush hour and exactly a week after the ground began to sink.
The crater, apparently triggered by subway construction in the area, had exposed the support columns of nearby buildings at a traffic intersection. No one was injured in the incident.
PICS: Massive sinkhole devours Japanese street
The seven-day turnaround for repairs compares with the ten months it took to fill in a 12m sinkhole that appeared in the Mancunian Way in Manchester in August 2015 after heavy rain. The road was reopened in June this year.
Daily Mail