China: Video shows sinkhole swallowing pedestrians

The dramatic moment when a group of pedestrians plunged into a sinkhole that opened up beneath their feet in China has been captured on camera. Security footage from a street in the northeastern city of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, shows several men and women standing near a bus-stop when the pavement suddenly collapses.

Four people are immediately swallowed by the ground while a fifth, a woman, clings to an exposed beam she manages to grab during the fall. Passers-by subsequently help them out of the hole, which local media said was two metres deep. Four of the five ill-fated pedestrians were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, according to The Telegraph.

Sinkholes have been appearing with increasing regularity in China in recent years, with some people blaming poor development plans rushed through in during the country's property boom as one possible cause.