ATLANTA - Department of Transportation crews were working on a massive sinkhole early Thursday, several hours after it caved in and snarled traffic in metro Atlanta. <br>
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Truck driver Buddy Shellnut was delivering asphalt to a local construction site when the road, along 14th Street between Spring and Williams, gave way under pressure Wednesday morning. His dump truck, carrying 15 tons of asphalt, plunged below the road around 11 a.m. as he waited at a traffic light. <br>
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``It dropped about 2 feet and I thought something was malfunctioning,'' Shelnutt said. ``I heard air hissing, and was thinking that it might have been a gas main under there, so I got out of the truck.'' <br>
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Public Works officials said a water main broke and a pipe that was 10 feet beneath the truck gave way and washed out. Transportation officials suggested alternate routes around the area. <br>
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No one was injured but it took nearly three hours to remove the truck, officials said. The sinkhole was 13 feet wide and 15 feet deep. <br>
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In 1993, a sinkhole not far from Wednesday's incident killed two people and engulfed nearly 200 feet of a hotel parking lot when an old sewer line collapsed during a storm.
