Australian couple wake to find sinkhole in backyard

Queensland couple Ray and Lynn McKay woke on Tuesday (August 2) to find a sinkhole in their back yard.

The pensioners looked on as the back lawn of the property they have lived in for 25 years got smaller, while the sinkhole got bigger, increasing from one metre to eight metres in diameter in a few hours.

“Scary, it’s getting even more scarier as it gets bigger,” said Lynn McKay.

The yard was cordoned off by officials as surveyors and engineering experts were called in.

Shocked neighbours looked on in disbelief.

“I’ve lived here for near 41 years, so I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life,” neighbour Darryl Preston told Australian Nine Network.

According to experts the street, aptly named Coal Street, might be sitting above a disused mine.

“What we know is that there was a lot of coal mining in the general area, and what we believe is that this is an exploration shaft that would have been a two metre by two metre square vertical excavation, probably about 100 metres deep,” said engineering geologist Ken Grubb.

Experts have ruled out that the McKay’s house will be affected by the sinkhole, but it is creeping ever closer to that Australian icon, the Hills Hoist rotary clothes line.