Workers try to get sinkhole sealed for holiday traffic

Traffic congestion around the area was reported after the road section from Bang Khen Roundabout to Phra Nakhon Rajabhat University was closed to facilitate the repairs.
Inspecting the Highway Department’s progress in repairing the sinkhole – which first appeared Friday and later caused another 10-meter-long subsidence underneath the road – yesterday, Chatchart said it should be complete by midnight because many holiday-makers returning to work in Bangkok would use Chaeng Wattana Road. In a bid to prevent future subsidence, he instructed department officials to use radar to search for any underground cavities that needed to be filled in, starting from the Prem Prachakorn Bridge.
Lak Si Highway Office head Santi Traipayak, who led the repair work, said officials had opened the road surface on both lanes to fill the cavities before resealing the road surface. Motorists were advised to avoid the route. He suggested that the sinkhole was caused by the 2011 flood, which caused its soil base of sand and crushed rock to leak into a canal.