Construction crews are working Tuesday on a sinkhole that opened up and swallowed part of Tennessee university's football field.
The sinkhole, which opened up at the corner of an endzone in the Austin Peay State University Governors Stadium on Monday, was originally quite small, reports the Leaf-Chronicle. It was first discovered to be about three feet by five feet and about five feet deep.
But crews quickly found out that a lot more ground around it was quite unstable. To reach bedrock, they had to dig a much larger hole that is about 40 feet wide and 40 feet deep.
Massive #sinkhole opens up at NCAA #football stadium http://t.co/Fo2tn410Ij pic.twitter.com/dpuZKqrX8b
— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) May 20, 2014
Sinkholes are quite common in Tennessee due to the karst topography and Bell & Associates Construction superintendent Mike Jenkins said, "We actually put a line item in the budget for sinkhole remediation." There is already a project underway to replace the stadium's main building.
According to Reuters, university spokesman Bill Persinger said that crews were looking into a "permanent fix," but that the stadium would be ready by football season in September.
Persinger also added that this sinkhole is not the first he's seen around campus. "I've seen dozens of them. They come up all the time."
image via Twitter from KHOU