Girl swallowed by pavement

[Video Link] A kindly hack came to her aid.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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moop2000

What’s a kindly hack?
- http://plantsarethestrangestpeople.blogspot.com/ mr_subjunctive
  
  A compassionate taxi driver.
- ChicagoD
  
  Cab driver. A hack is a cab driver.
- dragonfrog
  
  taxi driver, as in hackney coach driver. I was expecting a second-rate journalist at first.
  - Lobster
    
    I was expecting a cab driver, since BB refers to friggin EVERYTHING as a “hack.”
    - awjt
      
      I’m a comment hack. As in, I drive my taxi in here and say a bunch of stupid shit, in the name of journalism.
http://twitter.com/MrAaronSwainEsq Aaron Swain

Good to know the U.S. isn’t the only country with infrastructure issues.
joeposts

It looks like the driver had a moment of hesitation, like “Did I just actually see a girl plunge through concrete?” She’s lucky he was lucid!
ChicagoD

Wow. That was terrifying and awesome at the same time. I assume she was OK?
nixiebunny

My brain is saying, “What type of sidewalk is this that has a 6 meter deep cavern under it?”
- Roose_Bolton
  
  The kind that didn’t ALWAYS have a 6 meter deep cavern underneath? Sinkholes imply erosion of a previously-existing structure, no?
- xzzy
  
  Probably more common than you’d think.. cities have a whole bunch of activity going on beneath them. They run tours under Seattle and some of the spaces under the sidewalk have 15 feet of clearance.
  
  I would guess the core failure is poor construction regulation allowing for a weak spot in the pavement that just happened to pick that moment to give way.
  - SomeGuyNamedMark
    
    Some older cities have spaces under the pavement in front of shops for moving goods into basement storage rooms. Some of these spaces are still used and they have metal covers and powered lifts. Some have been removed and maybe just covered over instead of being filled.
  - krische
    
    I went on that tour when I visited Seattle. It was pretty awesome.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  This is a secret entrance to the Thugee lair. Kali Ma!
- chgoliz
  
  Forget the cavern….the sidewalk was barely an inch thick. No sub-structure. That child didn’t weigh 100 pounds and she went right through like it was paper.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

The video is interesting and all, but where is the BB thread for asteroid mining!?!? I thought you guys would have been all over that idea by now. Planetary Resources is the biggest story of the year in my mind.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  Boing Boing’s readers have a far greater chance of being swallowed up by sinkholes and such than of ever being personally involved with, or profiting from, asteroid mining.
  - Lobster
    
    Speak for yourself!
  - http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
    
    If Planetary Resources are even marginally successful, all of Humanity will benefit. Not to mention if the average investor is able to buy stock in the company. I bet the story was submitted, just got lost in the shuffle.
  - http://twitter.com/amanicdroid Mari Lwyd
    
    Did you prepare a probability survey to support your data?
http://www.mynameisjay.com/ Jay

I think I saw this on Looney Tunes once.
http://www.facebook.com/postelwait Cameron Postelwait

anyone notice how all the online tabloids (msn news, etc.) have headlines for this video that focus on the fact she was on the phone? seems like a lure to get cell phone haters (like myself) to read an article unrelated to absent minded cell phone talking.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=548160611 Susan Heffern-Shelton
  
  I confess, I was looking for a way to blame her cell use. But there was no clue she would have seen even if she was paying attention.
  - http://twitter.com/anderalert Pat Eisel
    
    One of the old dude regulars on Morning Joe was going all in on blaming the cell phone but he was being appropriately ridiculed by the co-host.
milkman

I’ll admit, I know very little about concrete. But this sidewalk looks pretty thin. I also agree with previous post – what’s with the crazy underground cave? Sure if anyone could find a better use for this space, it’s the Chinese.
Rich Keller

Yikes! Scary!

When Cyriak gets ahold of this, I expect him to have a giant fractal kitten pound her through the pavement.
- Lobster
  
  Or have a mutant version of her with all sorts of extraneous bodyparts emerge from the hole to vomit a giant fractal kitten at Wang Wei.
Andrew Reitsma

Funny there is a camera just at the right place to film the entire thing. That concrete looks pretty thin. Cruel practical joke? Or does someone not like cellphone walkers? Hope the girl’s ok in any case.
- Jerril
  
  It’s called a “Security Camera” – even without living in England, most places in urban centers are under video surveillance. Often the coverage is accidental because a camera in a store happens to have a view out the window when it’s really only intended to video the counter area (as an example). Gas stations, banks, and any place with an outside ATM are also usually under heavy video coverage – also jewelry stores.
  
  A store with a valuable storefront display is a great place to look for video footage of a street event as they’re often taping the sidewalk just in case someone does a smash and grab.
DreadJester

Was that some dental floss they were using to hold the ladder?? No wonder the girl was scared.
Chuck

I blame the CHUD.
Lolotehe

Is he now responsible for her for the rest of his life, as per tradition?
SpaceOtter

This is what happens when you dig only 99.9999999% of the way to China.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Justin-Forposting/100002531076048 Justin Forposting

She nearly fell through to the U.S.
SomeGuyNamedMark

Best comment: “She found the bonus level”
http://www.facebook.com/rick.verbael Rick Verbael

I don’t think I will buy cement made in China
- ChicagoD
  
  Oh, I think you will.
http://deansli.st/ Dean Putney

I like that the first thing the girl does after climbing out of the hole is straighten her shirt.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  She’s obviously a Star Trek fan.
  - MarcVader
    
    I’ll just beam that here.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krEGw4iuSJM
Lobster

The girl received few injuries from the fall, but unfortunately died of lead poisoning several days later.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=548160611 Susan Heffern-Shelton

I would have been curious, too, but I don’t know that I would have joined the mob on the hungry, human-eating sidewalk. “Hey, some girl just fell thr . . . ahhhhhh!”
- vrplumber
  
  Wow, that didn’t even occur to me until I read your comment. (i.e. I probably would have been one of the stupid people crowding around the hole :P )
  
  Surely if it was a sinkhole it would have been much wider than the little hole that the girl fell through, and all the extra people gathered around the edge of the hole could have had dire consequences.
- Culturedropout
  
  I was thinking exactly the same thing. Wow – the sidewalk just gave way over there. Quick! Everybody run and stand on that same section of pavement. It’s like the old game “Lemmings” with Chinese people… She was the clueless one that always fell into a hole and got stuck. They just needed one of the Chinese people to explode and allow the others to all fall in the hole too. At least that’s how it always worked for me.
- Anon_Mahna
  
  You know, that fits right along with my brain dubbing over “OM NOM NOM NOM!” on the 2nd viewing…
lakelady

She’s lucky to be alive. It was an accident like this that contributed to the death of Lorne Blair, producer/director/photographer of “Ring of Fire”. He died two days after breaking his leg falling through a sidewalk in Legian, Bali.
- Donald Petersen
  
  I may never step outside my house again.
- timquinn
  
  We are all lucky to be alive.
- http://twitter.com/anderalert Pat Eisel
  
  lucky? or is it all just some cruel joke….like falling through a hole in the sidewalk.
http://twitter.com/zhasu Zhasu

in soviet russia pavement walks on you
(it’s in china i know, but soviet russia sounds so much better)
- http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC
  
  “In collectivist China…”?
timquinn

Oh goody, now I have an answer to those, “Why can’t we build fast like in China.” comments.

Also, do people really not realize that there is stuff going on under the sidewalk? Wow.
spacedmonkey

A few weeks ago a different woman fell through a sidewalk in Beijing, landed in hot water, and got burned to death.
- http://twitter.com/anderalert Pat Eisel
  
  Mr./Ms. spacedmonkey, please provide more information. Linkage?
benher

Goodly comrade Wang will no doubt disappear in the coming week for exposing holes in the walls of the state.
Kleinzeit

“Getting no response he climbs down into the hole clinging to a cable strung underneath the pavement”, because that’s what Buster Keaton would have done.