A massive sinkhole has appeared on a street in Surrey, England, and is continuing to expand, swallowing more of the road surface. Surrey County Council has declared it a major incident.
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02-23, 2025The sinkhole initially appeared late Monday on Godstone High Street and had grown to at least 65 feet (20 meters) long by lunchtime on Tuesday. Currently, a second fissure has appeared, and a car is teetering on the edge, with the owner unable to move it.
Some families have been evacuated due to concerns that exposed cables could cause an explosion. One resident said the street now sounds "like a waterfall." It is reported that the evacuated houses were built about three years ago on a former sand and gravel quarry. Local residents also believe that caves exist beneath the area.
Nush Mir and her family were among those evacuated from the area by police. She stated, "We heard a very loud banging on the door. When I opened it, it sounded like we were in the middle of a waterfall because the sinkhole was right outside my front door." She added, "The policewoman told us we had to leave immediately. Within 10 minutes, we got the kids dressed and grabbed the nearest things we could find."
Currently, the Mir family has been arranged temporary accommodation by their insurance company. She stated that she is prepared to be unable to move back home for "at least a couple of months." In an interview with Radio 5 Live, Ms. Mir added, "Our house is completely unsafe. We don't know how much damage there is at the moment, but we do know we can't go home for the time being." She later stated that the sinkhole may be related to mine shafts and heavy vehicles that sometimes made her house "rattle" when they passed.
According to the charity Surrey Hills Society, there are about seven miles of tunnels beneath Godstone. Ms. Mir added, "We think it's a combination of factors – not just a simple burst water pipe, caves, or lorries."
Pete Burgess of the Wealden Cave and Mine Society said that a quarry marked as a "sand pit" can be seen on 19th-century maps directly below the sinkhole. He also added that sand dug from the pit was used for construction and gardening purposes. Other residents stated that the sinkhole occurred next to "brand new apartments" that were built in the area. Another resident added that they were forced to sleep in their car in a nearby parking lot after being evacuated early Tuesday morning.
Local businesses, including Godstone Pharmacy, stated that many shops have closed, and staff have been delivering medication on foot to ensure vulnerable customers receive their prescriptions. Staff member Murali Guddad said that the pharmacy has had very few customers since Monday. He added, "The pharmacy is completely dead. There's no one, the streets are empty, everything is closed. But we are still open, we are still working."
Due to the major incident, the operation is currently being managed by the Surrey Local Resilience Forum, with Surrey County Council (SCC) as the lead agency. SCC stated that investigations are continuing to ensure the area is safe and to repair utilities. Carl Bussey, Assistant Director for Community Safety at the council, said, "Tandridge District Council is providing advice on accommodation for residents within the cordon (approximately 30 properties)."
In an updated statement, Bussey added that properties in the wider area "can use water and electricity as normal," with affected properties limited to those within the cordon. He added that more permanent repairs will be carried out once "the site is deemed safe to work on." The Environment Agency said there was no evidence that the sinkhole had caused pollution. Godstone MP Claire Coutinho thanked the engineers for their work and said her team would be in "regular contact" with Tandridge Council and Surrey County Council to ensure those who had been evacuated "get the support they need in the coming days and weeks."
SES Water said on Wednesday morning that water supplies to properties had been restored, but warned that the water may be discolored. The company said this posed no health risk and customers would be compensated on their bills. Repairs are expected to take several months.
The cause of the sinkhole is unclear, but experts from the British Geological Survey (BGS) said it could be due to a burst water pipe. Andrew Farrant, a geologist for the BGS in southeast England, said that the village is underlain by fragile sandstone, which is normally stable, but if there is a sudden influx of a lot of water, it could "wash away the fragile sandstone bedrock." This would create a void, and then the ground above would collapse into it. Farrant suspects that the water may have come from a local burst water pipe.
Local residents have expressed concerns about local sand and gravel quarries and historical mining activities that have formed caves near the village. The old sand mines have now been backfilled, so the BGS believes this is unlikely to be the cause, but they said they cannot rule out the possibility that other unmapped sand mines exist, or that the top of a historical cave collapsed elsewhere, causing the water pipe to burst initially.
