A mother and daughter were rescued by Los Angeles firefighters in Chatsworth, California after a 15-foot sinkhole swallowed two vehicles.
Per Insider, two cars were swallowed by the sinkhole, with two people inside each respective vehicle. One of the cars was on top of the other, with two passengers in one of the vehicles being able to climb out of the sinkhole on their own. The LAFD were able to lift out the two in the other vehicle, identified by local news station KTLA 5 as mother and daughter, with the use of a special harness and aerial ladder.
"Firefighters arrived to find a large sinkhole and two vehicles (one on top of the other) inside, approximately 15' below ground level. They located two people still trapped in the bottom vehicle. The initial rescue attempt involved bringing ground ladders and laying them down to span the hole so crews could try to reach the victims but this was not successful," wrote the LAFD in a statement shared on Facebook. "Using the aerial ladder to position the rescuers over the hole, a high-angle rope rescue operation was used to lower a firefighter down so they could secure the victim with a harness and then be raised back up to the surface while the ladder rotated around to safe ground. Crews executed this operation smoothly and safely rescued both patients."
Initial attempts to rescue the mother and daughter were made using ground ladders, but the department was unsuccessful. The two only suffered minor injuries during the incident, but the road is expected to remain closed for an undetermined amount of time as evaluations and repairs are carried out.
"Because of the instability of the road, we couldn't do anything over the side of the sinkhole," an LAFD representative added. "Our helicopters were grounded due to weather, so there were no aerial options."
The sinkhole was caused by recent weather in California, which has seen an unprecedented amount of rainfall over the last two weeks. CNN reports that as many as 34 million Californians were on a flood watch earlier this week, which accounts for approximately 90 percent of the state’s population.
