A colossal underground pipe inexplicably rose more than 10 metres from a construction site in a busy area of Osaka, Japan, overnight, baffling residents and causing traffic chaos. The steel pipe's sudden ascent was reported to police early Wednesday by a pedestrian who noticed pieces of asphalt falling from the cylinder.
One office worker told NHK public television he 'could not understand how it happened,' while another nearby worker initially thought a new road support had been erected overnight. At its peak, the pipe, measuring 3.5 metres in diameter, towered as high as 13 metres, according to Osaka's construction department.
The unexpected elevation occurred at a sewer construction site where workers were connecting an existing sewer line to a new channel designed to manage excess rainwater and prevent flooding. Officials explained the pipe served as a retaining structure to prevent soil collapse, and suggested that draining water from the pipe shortly before the incident may have caused the empty apparatus to float.
By Thursday, firefighters had successfully lowered the pipe back to just a few feet above ground after cutting a hole in its side and injecting water to push it down. City officials now plan to cut the remaining 1.6 metres of pipe still visible, an operation expected to necessitate a road closure for several more days.
