Bus driver Josef Bartolo was on his way to Ċirkewwa to pick up his first passengers of the day early yesterday morning when he suddenly felt the back wheels collapse into the ground.
His bus got stuck in a hole caused when a section of Mellieħa’s Marfa Road, along Għadira bay, collapsed after it was weakened by water gushing out of an underground high-pressure water main.
“It was dark and all I could see was sand covering the road... It’s not unusual that sand from the beach ends up in the road during bad weather. This time, although the weather was bad, the sand had come out from underneath the road, but I didn’t know that,” Mr Bartolo said.
It was 6.10 a.m. and after seeing other buses and cars drive on in front of him he went ahead. Then, suddenly, the ground beneath his vehicle’s back wheels caved in and he was stuck.
Mr Bartolo stepped out of the empty bus to see what had happened but it was dark and he could barely see anything other than the sand.
He phoned for help and it later became clear his bus was stuck in a hole in the road that was full of water. Thankfully, he said, his vehicle was hardly damaged.
Officials from Transport Malta and the Water Services Corporation turned up on site and started the repair works by draining the water out of the hole and fixing the leak.
In a statement later, WSC explained that the road gave way when a 500 millimetre water main leaked large amounts of water.
“Flowing water eroded the material underneath the road surface creating a small cavern that collapsed when an empty bus passed over the area, causing it to get stuck. No one was injured,” a corporation spokesman said.
The carriageway, in the direction of Ċirkewwa, was closed to traffic that was deviated through the opposing carriageway, Transport Malta said.
Due to the incident, water supply to Għadira, Armier, Ċirkewwa and Marfa was suspended until this morning.