A giant underground pipe mysteriously rose more than 32 feet out of a sewer construction site, bursting through a busy roadway in a Japanese city, according to authorities.
The steel pipe’s ascension was reported to police in Osaka early Wednesday after a pedestrian reported shattered pieces of asphalt falling from the cylinder, which nearly climbed to the height of an elevated road overnight.
No witnesses reported seeing the pipe burst through the ground, leaving many residents and nearby workers baffled and wondering whether a new road support had been erected overnight.
The pipe, with a diameter of 11.5 feet, shot up 42 feet in the air at one point, according to the Osaka construction department.
Workers had been connecting an existing sewer line to a channel designed to hold excess rainwater at the construction site. The pipe that rose above ground was used as a retaining structure to keep soil from collapsing, the construction department added.
Workers had drained water before its overnight climb, which may have caused the empty apparatus to float, they explained.
On Thursday, firefighters cut a hole in its side and injected water to push it down, allowing the pipe to tower just a few feet above ground.
City officials said they plan to cut the last 5.2 feet of the pipe that remains visible above the ground in an operation that would cause the road to remain shuttered for several more days.
With Post wires
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
