Giant crack in road sparks chaos in China

Roads have “burst open” sparking chaos in China as thousands of residents are evacuated over fears that their teetering skyscrapers will fall down.

Giant cracks in a road have sparked chaos in China as thousands of residents are evacuated over fears that their teetering skyscrapers will come tumbling down.

Cracks as wide as a fist broke through the road surfaces near a residential complex in the city of Tianjin in northern China, causing panic on social media.

Some 3899 residents in at least three 25-floor buildings had been evacuated to nearby hotels as of Saturday, the district media said in a social media post.

Giant cracks in a road have sparked chaos in China.

One resident said the road “burst open”.

One resident, Mr Li, said: “I didn’t witness it personally, but I heard that around 6pm, some people on the street heard a loud ‘bang’ resembling an explosion, and the road just burst open.”

Shocking footage shared online showed the tarmac surging upwards as huge cracks cut through it, or grass giving away with the earth split open.

Inside, other videos showed cracks slithering up the walls of what looked to be a basement, over the ceiling and back down the opposing wall.

News.com.au could not independently confirm the videos.

Videos showed the tarmac surging upwards as huge cracks cut through it.

Almost 4000 people were evacuated.

The huge cracks formed due to land subsidence — when earth sinks downwards due to natural processes or human activity — after a loss of water beneath the ground, Country Garden Holdings, which developed the complex, said in a statement to Bloomberg.

The company based its findings on a preliminary investigation by the Chinese government and said it will assist with subsequent construction led by the government.

Meanwhile, district media said the trend of land subsidence had “slowed down”.

“Our city immediately started mass transfer and emergency engineering, and invited experts from relevant state ministries and commissions to discuss,” they said in the same Weibo post.

Indoors, cracks could be seen snaking up walls and over ceilings.

Grass gave way to make way for the splitting earth.

The worrying cracks drew attention on social media in China, where building safety has been a major concern.

Last year, a tower in Changsa collapsed, killing 53 people, after new floors were illegally added to the top.

The commercial building caved in, prompting six days of painstaking attempts to pull survivors free from the mass of rubble and twisted metal.

“The trapped and incommunicado people from the accident scene have all been found … 10 people were rescued and 53 people died,” authorities said at the time.

A 72-story tower in Shenzhen similarly began to wobble in 2021.

Incredible footage showed shocked onlookers watching on as the 300-metre-tall building visibly shook in the wind.

In 2021, China banned the development of skyscrapers taller than 500 metres due to safety concerns — though the ban does little in practice.

Of the world’s tallest 100 buildings, just 11 surpass the 500 metre mark. A 25-storey building, such as the ones that have recently been evacuated, is only about 70 metres tall.

Originally published as Giant crack in road sparks chaos in China