Early in the morning, city residents awoke to a loud, prolonged rumble, as if a building had collapsed nearby. A few minutes later, the first photos appeared on social media: a huge section of the city highway had simply collapsed, leaving a deep hole in the ground.
The road, used by hundreds of cars daily, now ended in nothingness. Police, rescuers, and engineers immediately arrived at the scene. People were herded behind a barrier, fearing further collapses, but everyone looked down in horror—where there had once been smooth asphalt, there was now a gaping abyss of red clay and metal debris.
Specialists began an inspection to ensure there were no victims under the ruble. Several men rappelled down using safety ropes, and flashlights revealed pieces of rebar, wires, and asphalt debris in the darkness.
But suddenly, in all this chaos, they noticed something that shouldn’t have been there. 😨😱 The specialists were horrified by the discovery.
One of the engineers, shining a light into a far corner, noticed a strange metallic glint. They cleared the ground and realized they had stumbled upon a huge tank—rusty but intact, with metal walls extending deep into the tank.
At first they thought it was part of an old sewer or a water tank, but as soon as one of the men came closer, everyone smelled a sharp, pungent odor.
My nose stung, my eyes watered, and someone immediately shouted, “Get away, don’t breathe!” Barely visible markings were visible on the surface of the tank—a faded radiation sign and the inscription in English: “Danger. Do not open.”
When experts called environmentalists and rescuers, it became clear that a forgotten chemical reservoir waste
had been located under the city for decades , covered with earth back in the seventies.
None of the local authorities knew about it, and the documents about the site disappeared. It was likely corrosion of the walls and groundwater that corroded the metal, causing the collapse.
The road was closed, the area was cordoned off, but the smell lingered in the air for a long time. People whispered that if the collapse had occurred during the day, when cars were driving on the highway, the city could have suffered a real catastrophe.
