Massive Sinkhole Swallows China's Shanghai Road, CCTV Footage Goes Viral | WATCH

A massive sinkhole suddenly opened up on a busy roadway in Shanghai, swallowing a large stretch of the street and sending shockwaves through the area. 

Security camera footage captured the dramatic moment the ground gave way, with the road surface cracking, sinking inward and collapsing into a deep, hollow void. Bystanders can be seen running to safety as the cavity rapidly expanded, pulling in nearby structures and debris.

Watch the Video Here: 

Nearly half of China’s cities sinking: Study

The Shanghai incident comes against a troubling backdrop of the study published in the journal Science that found nearly half of China’s major cities are experiencing “moderate to severe” land subsidence. Analysing nationwide satellite data, researchers reported that 45 percent of China’s urban land is sinking faster than 3 millimetres per year, while 16 percent is subsiding at rates exceeding 10 millimetres annually.

The study was led by Ao Zurui of South China Normal University.

The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found 45% of China's urban land was sinking faster than 3 millimetres per year, with 16% at more than 10 mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables but also the sheer weight of the built environment.

With China's urban population already in excess of 900 million people, "even a small portion of subsiding land in China could therefore translate into a substantial threat to urban life," said the team of researchers. 

Subsidence already costs China more than 7.5 billion yuan ($1.04 billion) in annual losses, and within the next century, nearly a quarter of coastal land could actually be lower than sea levels, putting hundreds of millions of people at an even greater risk of inundation.

"It really brings home that this is for China a national problem and not a problem in just one or two places," said Robert Nicholls at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. "And it is a microcosm of what is happening around the rest of the world."

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