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LAHORE: A sinkhole appeared again on Khayaban-i-Firdausi, Johar Town, just at the start of the Shaukat Khanum intersection flyover after the main sewer line laid by the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) ruptured.

Fortunately, the motorists passing through the road at about 12pm narrowly escaped from felling into the sinkhole.

“You cannot imagine the situation we have been passing through for the last five years at least, as this road has become a death trap for everyone. A number of sinkholes have appeared already either due to rupture of the main sewer line or the torrential rains,” said a motorist while talking to Dawn on Thursday. “And for the last 7/8 months, the work on laying the new sewer line on this road is underway at a slow pace, closing one side of the road (from this intersection to a spot near Jagawar Chowk (towards Shoq Chowk),” he added.

According to another motorist, the repeated occurrence of sinkholes finally forced Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to completely close one lane (along the central/ maiden greenbelt) of the road from sports complex to the bridge. “But again a big sinkhole occurred, exposing negligence of Wasa that should have replaced this line with new one 4/5 years before,” he deplored.

On the other hand, LDA DG Tahir Farooq, Wasa MD Ghufran Ahmad and Chief Engineer Asrar Saeed rushed to the spot and asked for filling/repair work within the shortest possible time. He said repeated appearance of sinkholes is also damaging the road infrastructure badly.

On Sept 30 last year. three persons were seriously injured when a car and a motorcycle plunged into a sinkhole on Khayaban-i-Firdausi, caused by rupture of this decades-old trunk sewer line. Before this in October 2023, a big sinkhole had appeared at the same place (in front of the main entrance to the Revenue Cooperative Housing Scheme), injuring three members of a family when their car fell into the depression. Before this, as many as 10 other incidents of sinkholes were also reported on Khayaban-i-Fridausi from 2021 to 2023, while as many other similar incidents occurred in other parts of the city, including the Mall Road and Gulshan-i-Ravi.

According to experts, such road depressions occur either due to underground water seepage causing soil erosion, or poor quality of road construction, including inadequate earth-filling and compaction. They say that sinkholes form when the ground surface is no longer supported by soil and factors like heavy rain, wastewater flow from broken sewer lines, or the weight of fast-moving vehicles weaken the asphalt, causing it to collapse.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2025